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Although Lijphart's typology of consensus and majoritarian democracy can be regarded as the most widely used tool to classify democratic regimes, it has been rarely applied to Latin America so far. We try to fill this gap by adapting Lijphart's typological framework to the Latin American context in the following way. In contrast to previous studies, we treat the type of democracy as an independent variable and include informal factors such as clientelism or informal employment in our assessment of democratic patterns. On this basis, we aim to answer the following questions. First, how did the patterns of democracy evolve in Latin America over the two decades between 1990 and 2010 and what kind of differences can be observed in the region? Second, what are the institutional determinants of the observed changes? We focus on the emergence of new parties because of their strong impact on the first dimension of Lijphart's typology. From our observations we draw the following tentative conclusions: If strong new parties established themselves in the party system but failed to gain the presidency, they pushed the system towards consensualism. Conversely, new parties that gained the presidency produced more majoritarian traits.
This review article deals with the topic of sustainability in the German healthcare system and presents an overview of how the six articles of our research relate to one another. After introducing to the context of the research, its internal principles, and the methods applied, three perspectives are presented, each also discussed in terms of the respective literature in sustainability science and political science. The review concludes by presenting a circular model and by discussing the general limitations as well as the practical implications of our research.
Whereas the measurement of the quality of democracy focused on the rough differentiation of democracies and autocracies in the beginning (e.g. Vanhanen, Polity, Freedom House), the focal point of newer instruments is the assessment of the quality of established democracies. In this context, tensions resp. trade-offs between dimensions of democracy are discussed as well (e.g. Democracy Barometer, Varieties of Democracy). However, these approaches lack a systematic discussion of trade-offs and they are not able to show trade-offs empirically. We address this research desideratum in a three-step process: Firstly, we propose a new conceptual approach, which distinguishes between two different modes of relationships between dimensions: mutual reinforcing effects and a give-and-take relationship (trade-offs) between dimensions. By introducing our measurement tool, Democracy Matrix, we finally locate mutually reinforcing effects as well as trade-offs. Secondly, we provide a new methodological approach to measure trade-offs. While one measuring strategy captures the mutual reinforcing effects, the other strategy employs indicators, which serve to gauge trade-offs. Thirdly, we demonstrate empirical findings of our measurement drawing on the Varieties of Democracy dataset. Incorporating trade-offs into the measurement enables us to identify various profiles of democracy (libertarian, egalitarian and control-focused democracy) via the quality of its dimensions.
This study examines types of democracies that result from trade-offs within the democratic quality. Recently, the existence and relevance of trade-offs has been widely discussed. The idea is that the functions associated with the quality of democracy cannot all be maximized simultaneously. Thus, trade-offs are expressed in distinct profiles of democracy. Different profiles of democracy favour certain democracy dimensions over others due to their institutional design. Conceptually, we differentiate between four different democracy profiles: a libertarian-majoritarian (high political freedom, lower political equality, and lower political and legal control values), an egalitarian-majoritarian (high equality combined with lower freedom and control values), as well as two control-focused democracy profiles (high control values either with high degrees of freedom or high degrees of equality). We apply a cluster analysis with a focus on cluster validation on the Democracy Matrix dataset—a customized version of the Varieties-of-Democracy dataset. To increase the robustness of the cluster results, this study uses several different cluster algorithms, multiple fit indices as well as data resampling techniques. Based on all democracies between 1900 and 2017, we find strong empirical evidence for these democracy profiles. Finally, we discuss the temporal development and spatial distribution of the democracy profiles globally across the three waves of democracy, as well as for individual countries.
The investigation of trade-offs in political science receives only limited attention, although many scholars acknowledge the importance of trade-offs across a variety of different areas. A systematic and comprehensive examination of the topic is missing. This thematic issue of Politics and Governance sheds light on this research deficit by providing a holistic but also an integrative view on trade-offs in the political realm for the first time. Researchers of trade-offs from different political areas present and discuss their findings, and promote a fruitful exchange, which overcomes the current isolation of the approaches. They consider the theoretical and methodological questions as well as the identification of empirical tradeoffs. Furthermore, they provide insights into the possibility to balance trade-offs and strategies, which could help actors to find such compromises.
Editorial
(2020)
No abstract available.
Die COVID-19 Pandemie und ihre gesamtgesellschaftlichen Folgen werden zum Stresstest für die globale Agenda „Frauen, Frieden und Sicherheit“. Mit dieser Agenda verfolgt die Weltgemeinschaft seit dem Jahr 2000 das Ziel, Frauen in Situationen von gewaltsamen Konflikten und in der Phase des Wiederaufbaus vor Gewalt und Menschenrechtsverletzungen zu schützen, ihnen eine belangvolle Partizipation im Friedensprozess zu ermöglichen und so zu einem gendersensiblen Friedensbildungsprozess beizutragen. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird argumentiert, dass die Folgen der Corona-Krise einen Rückfall im Implementierungsprozess der Agenda auslösen könnten, insbesondere in Bezug auf Geschlechterstereotype. Es wird diskutiert ob bestimmte als traditionell-weiblich perzipierte Rollen verfestigt werden und welche Auswirkungen diese Beobachtung auf die Zukunft der globalen Agenda haben könnte. Von besonderer Bedeutung ist hierbei das Konzept der globalen Fürsorge.
Is there a Decline of Democracy? Democracy measurement provides the basis for answering this question. However, there are different measurement tools based on different meanings of democracy that have been shown to vary in their concept validity. Therefore, it is relevant to examine whether the results of the different measurement tools converge or diverge with respect to a potential decline of democracy. Smolka (2021) finds a decline of democracy for new and old EU states based on standardized data from the Democracy Barometer. A re-analysis using the original data of the Democracy Barometer and the Democracy Matrix can hardly replicate these results. A comparison of further measurements shows that the instruments diverge rather than converge. I therefore conclude with some thoughts on overcoming the selection problem that arises in light of these contrasts.
The aim of this paper is to illuminate the interdependent relation and connectivity between state and regime known as the state-regime-nexus. To conceptualize the reciprocal institutional relation between state and regime and to deepen the understanding of the state-regime-nexus, I focus on law and legal order as one mutual linkage between state and regime in both democratic and autocratic regimes. To do so, this conceptual paper addresses two points that are part of the same topic: the relation between state, regime and law and different variants of legal order in democratic and autocratic regimes. This creates a theoretical basis to gain more conceptual and analytical clarity in the complex realm of the state-regime-nexus.