The Quality of Democracy

Abstract

For the past two decades the main topic of research in comparative politics has been democratization. The question troubling scholars has been why some countries become and stay democratic, while others either do not democratize or waver between democracy and authoritarianism. This research program has been both pro lific and successful. Today, a considerable amount is known about why democracies are distributed around the world the way they are.1 Nevertheless, the third wave has largely ended, and there appear to be few new cases of democratization or authoritarian relapse to explain. Existing cases, more over, have been analyzed in depth both through careful case studies and aggregate statistical analyses. While more could be done, scholarly attention might yield greater gains by focusing on aspects of democratization besides the transition to and the persistence of democracy. One interesting place to look is in recent work that argues that many of these new democracies do not function as expected. Guillermo O'Donnell, for example, has noted that many Latin American democracies should be termed delegative democracies because presidents, while elected democratically, rule without reference to public opin