Democracies in Peril?

Hans Keman is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Political Science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam), the Netherlands.

List of tables

List of figures

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Preface

1 Prologue: democracy in the 21st century

1.1 Democracies in peril: backsliding and de-democratisation

1.2 The concept of democraticness: proto-types

1.3 Levels of democraticness: the yard-stick for comparison

1.4 The storyline as a “road trip”: democratisation and political decay

1.5 Value-free and value-related knowledge: a realist position

PART 1

Studying democracy: detecting flaws, defects and perils

2 Reversing trends in “democraticness”

2.1 Democracy in peril?

2.2 Are “full” democracies indeed reverting?

2.3 Full democracies in contrast to flawed and defective democracies

2.4 Perilous developments: potential reasons and questions to ask

3 Comparative political science and the study of democracy

3.1 The academic debate: room for improvement

3.2 Omissions in the study of democratic politics

3.3 Comparing democratic states: full, flawed and defective polities

4 Thinking about democracy: the origins of the liberal model

4.1 From ideas to design

4.2 The enlightenment and the concept of the democratic state

4.3 John Stuart Mill and liberal democracy

4.4 The roots of liberal democracy laid out: still work in progress

PART 2

Pathways towards liberal Democratisation

5 Designing liberal democracy: institutionalising the polity

5.1 Constitutional trajectories toward “representative” governance

5.2 Missing dimensions, institutional progress and constraints

5.3 The shaping of the polity towards liberal democracy

5.4 Considerations on the road to liberal democratisation

6 Towards universal suffrage and representation of the people

6.1 Electoral inclusiveness and fair representation

6.2 Finding the optimal solution to fair and effective representation

6.3 The effects of electoral systems: inclusiveness and pluriform representation

6.4 Institutional engineering: the choice of an optimal electoral system

7 Who governs at the end of the day in a democracy?

7.1 Power distribution and indirect democracy: inevitable or containable?

7.2 Democracy and selected leadership: the role of political elites

7.3 Indirect democracy: selecting accountable leadership

7.4 Elitism versus pluralism: power concentration or dispersion?

7.5 The scope and limits of liberal democracy

PART 3

Contemporary approaches to the development of democracy 97

8 Polyarchy and pluralism: waves of democratisation

8.1 Polyarchy: the route to “full” democracy?

8.2 Pathways of democratisation: sequences towards polyarchy

8.3 Waves of democratisation: path dependencies and critical junctures

8.4 The second wave of democratisation and reversal (1920–1939)

8.5 Post-war waves towards polyarchy and beyond

8.6 Conceptual considerations on polyarchy

9 Consensus democracy: the alternative to polyarchy?

9.1 Cleavage theory and the coming about of consensus democracy

9.2 Institutional engineering a peaceful polity: consensus democracy

9.3 Consensus democracy and a better and kinder society

9.4 Considerations on the theory of consensus democracy

10 Parties and democracy: does politics matter?

10.1 Politics – polity – policy and democracy

10.2 Complexities of democracy: political parties and policy performance

10.3 Electoral politics and parties in competition and government

10.4 To what extent does democratic politics matter?

PART 4

The liberal model as a yardstick of full democracy?

11 Ranking the stars of democraticness

11.1 The end of history or political decay?

11.2 Liberal democracy: the paradigm to follow? Ranking the stars

11.3 The state of democracy in the 21st century

11.4 Towards fuller democracies or the end of the liberal model?

12 The limits of the liberal democratic model

12.1 From liberal to full democracy? Variations of democraticness

12.2 The paradigm of liberal democracy contested: toward a fuller democracy?

12.3 Challenging liberal democracy: reforming the system

12.4 The state of the liberal model: embeddedness or moving away?

12.5 The limits to liberal democracy

13 Signs of backsliding: illiberalism and populism

13.1 “Illiberalism” and “anti-pluralism” and the level of democraticness

13.2 Anti-pluralism and the impact of populism

13.3 The growth of anti-democratic tendencies: illiberalism and populism

13.4 Backsliding towards defective democracy

PART 5

Liberal democracy, the national state and governing society

14 Macro-politics and micro-performance of the “state”

14.1 The problem-solving capability of the democratic state

14.2 Public policy formation: political choice and policy performance

14.3 Trust is hard to gain but easy to lose: output legitimacy

15 Liberal democracy, legitimacy and stateness: micro performance

15.1 Democratic politics, public policy and societal performance

15.2 The crisis-solving capacity of democratic state: coping with a pandemic

15.3 Avoiding misery, inequalities and the pursuit of happiness?

15.4 The democratic advantage and effective stateness as a sine qua non

16 Legitimacy and the liberal democratic state in the 21st century

16.1 Democracy and the state: entering a new age

16.2 Trust and confidence in institutions

16.3 The rise of social media and its role in politics and society

16.4 The battle for the people: mainstream party politics in disregard

16.5 The shift to provocative parliamentarism: harbouring populist illiberalism

17 Epilogue: backsliding into the 21st century: outmoded or viable and resilient?

17.1 Liberal democracy: state of affairs

17.2 Fear for autocratisation: institutional decay and anti-democratic ethos

17.3 Positive conditions and negative consequences of democraticness

Index