The And Of A Democracy - 2039 Words

There is general agreement in the field that the United States, France, Australia, India, and countless other countries are democracies. In the same vein, political scientists are not wasting their breath arguing that China, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea are not democracies. But, between these obvious examples are countless examples of countries that fall somewhere in between. For political scientists, it is often impossible to distinguish which nations are democracies, which are autocracies, and where the line falls. There is no one agreed upon definition of a democracy, and no agreed upon set of traits of a democracy. Some, such as those used by Dahl (What Political Institutions†¦ 8) are dichotomous, while others like the Freedom†¦show more content†¦One common trait looked for within a democracy is turnover of leadership positions. If control over the legislature or the executive positions changes, it shows that the elections were competitive, that the old part y was willing to leave office, and that a new, different party was able to take control (Gilbert 275). Elections must be fair, often meaning they are monitored by an independent third party. However, they must also be respected, meaning an incumbent who loses must leave office. So, what traits are necessary for a regime to hold competitive elections? Dahl describes several traits of a liberal democracy, with several notable traits being that the regime is responsible to the will of the people, there is freedom of expression, independent news sources, and inclusive citizenship (Dahl Institutions Necessary for†¦ 6-7). Serval of these are self-evident. What is the point of an election if it does not affect the agenda of the government? Others traits require further examination. It is obvious that sources of information not under the control of the incumbent. However, the lines between free and unfree press are often blurry. Democracies can be considered illiberal as members of the opposition can be denied air time or media coverage (Levitsky 53) or private journalists can be harassed (Levitsky 54). These violations would skew the information available to the