Syllabus
Block I. Democracy - Democratic Quality - Democratization 1. Introduction
Course Overview
Course Requirements
Recommended reading:
Saward, Michael. 1994. Democratic Theory and Indices of Democratization. In Defining and Measuring Democracy, edited by D. Beetham. London: Sage. 2. What is Democracy?
Required reading:
Schmitter, P. C., & Karl, T. L. (1991). What democracy is... and is not. Journal of democracy, 2(3), 75-88.
Recommended reading:
Collier, D., & Levitsky, S. (1997). Democracy with adjectives: conceptual innovation in comparative research. World Politics, 430-451. 3. Democratic Quality
Required reading:
Munck, G. L. (2016). What is democracy? A reconceptualization of the quality of democracy. Democratization, 23(1), 1-26.
Recommended reading:
Diamond, L., & Morlino, L. (2004). The quality of democracy: An overview. Journal of Democracy, 15(4), 20-31.
Berg-Schlosser, D. (2004). The quality of democracies in Europe as measured by current indicators of democratization and good governance. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 20(1), 28-55. 4. Democratic Consolidation
Required reading:
Schedler, A. (1998). What is democratic consolidation?. Journal of Democracy, 9(2), 91-107.
Recommended reading:
Linz, Juan and Alfred Stephan (April 1996): "Towards Consolidated Democracies." Journal of Democracy, 7(2), 34-51.
Schedler, A. (2001). Taking uncertainty seriously: the blurred boundaries of democratic transition and consolidation. Democratization, 8(4), 1-22. 5. Democratic Backsliding
Required reading:
Bermeo, N. (2016). On democratic backsliding. Journal of Democracy, 27(1), 5-19.
Recommended reading:
Croissant, A., & Haynes, J. (2021). Democratic regression in Asia: introduction. Democratization, 28(1), 1-21.
Greskovits, B. (2015). The hollowing and backsliding of democracy in East Central Europe. Global Policy, 6(S1), 28-37.
Block II. Measuring Democracy and Democratization 6. Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy
Required reading:
Collier, D., & Adcock, R. (1999). Democracy and dichotomies: A pragmatic approach to choices about concepts. Annual Review of Political Science, 2(1), 537-565.
Recommended reading:
Munck, G. L., & Verkuilen, J. (2002). Conceptualizing and measuring democracy: Evaluating alternative indices. Comparative Political Studies, 35(1), 5-34.
Coppedge, M., Gerring, J., Altman, D., Bernhard, M., Fish, S., Hicken, A., ... & Teorell, J. (2011). Conceptualizing and measuring democracy: A new approach. Perspectives on Politics, 247-267. 7. Measuring Democratic Consolidation
Required reading:
Schneider, C. Q., & Schmitter, P. C. (2004). Liberalization, transition, and consolidation: Measuring the components of democratization. Democratization, 11(5), 59-90.
Recommended reading:
Altman, D., & Pérez-Liñán, A. (2002). Assessing the quality of democracy: Freedom, competitiveness, and participation in eighteen Latin American countries. Democratization, 9(2), 85-100.
Greene, S. R. (2020). Coups and the consolidation mirage: lessons for stability in new democracies. Democratization, 27(7), 1280-1300. 8. Measuring Democratic Backsliding
Required reading:
Bakke, E., & Sitter, N. (2020). The EU’s Enfants Terribles: Democratic Backsliding in Central Europe since 2010. Perspectives on Politics, 1-16.
Recommended reading:
Lührmann, A., Mechkova, V., Dahlum, S., Maxwell, L., Olin, M., Petrarca, C. S., ... & Lindberg, S. I. (2018). State of the world 2017: autocratization and exclusion?. Democratization, 25(8), 1321-1340.
Mechkova, V., Lührmann, A., & Lindberg, S. I. (2017). How much democratic backsliding?. Journal of Democracy, 28(4), 162-169.
Block III. Democratic Indices 9. Freedom House
Required reading:
Giannone, D. (2010). Political and ideological aspects in the measurement of democracy: the Freedom House case. Democratization, 17(1), 68-97.
Recommended reading:
Högström, J. (2013). Does the choice of democracy measure matter? Comparisons between the two leading democracy indices, Freedom House and Polity IV. Government and Opposition, 48(2), 201-221.
Vaccaro, A. (2021). Comparing measures of democracy: statistical properties, convergence, and interchangeability. European Political Science, 1-19. 10. Bertelsmann Transformation Index
Required reading:
Merkel, W. (2004). Embedded and defective democracies. Democratization, 11(5), 33-58.
Recommended reading:
Brusis, M. (2005). Assessing democracy, market economy and political management: the Bertelsmann Transformation Index and Southeastern Europe. (CAP Policy Research, 1/2005).
Lavrič, M., & Bieber, F. (2020). Shifts in Support for Authoritarianism and Democracy in the Western Balkans. Problems of Post-Communism, 1-10. 11. V-Dem Index
Required reading:
Teorell, J., Coppedge, M., Lindberg, S., & Skaaning, S. E. (2019). Measuring polyarchy across the globe, 1900-2017. Studies in Comparative International Development, 54(1), 71-95.
Recommended reading:
Lührmann, A., Marquardt, K. L., & Mechkova, V. (2020). Constraining governments: New indices of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal accountability. American Political Science Review, 114(3), 811-820.
Boswell, J., & Corbett, J. (2021). Democracy, Interpretation and the “Problem” of Conceptual Ambiguity: Reflections on the V-Dem Project’s Struggles with Operationalizing Deliberative Democracy. Polity, 53(2), 000-000. 12. Final Session: Comparing Indices for Measuring Democracy
Required reading:
Munck, G. L., & Verkuilen, J. (2002). Conceptualizing and measuring democracy: Evaluating alternative indices. Comparative Political Studies, 35(1), 5-34.
Recommended reading:
Møller, J., & Skaaning, S. E. (2010). Beyond the radial delusion: Conceptualizing and measuring democracy and non-democracy. International Political Science Review, 31(3), 261-283.
Fleuss, D., & Helbig, K. (2020). Measuring Nation States’ Deliberativeness: Systematic challenges, methodological pitfalls, and strategies for upscaling the measurement of deliberation. Political Studies, 0032321719890817.
Annotation
What is a democracy, and how can we measure it? Which conceptual tools are necessary to measure the dynamics of democratic quality? What data resources and methods can we use to assess the path towards democratic consolidation or – in turn – democratic backsliding? This course critically engages with the core literature on democracy and democratic quality and existing indices to measure and compare them. The course has a theoretical and applied component.
The theoretical component aims to provide a thorough understanding of the purposes, benefits, challenges, and drawbacks of comparing democratic quality over time and across countries. We will familiarize ourselves with several key democratic indexes (Freedom House, Bertelsmann Transformation Index, Varieties of Democracy), review literature that applies these indices and familiarize ourselves with their online analytical tools.
In combination, the two components aim at improving theoretical knowledge of democratic quality, data literacy, and the ability to assess the nonlinear dynamics of democracy.