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Where are the people? A call for people-centred concepts and measurements of democracy
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Doorenspleet, Renske (2015) Where are the people? A call for people-centred concepts and measurements of democracy. Government and Opposition, 50 (03). pp. 469-494. doi:10.1017/gov.2015.10 ISSN 0017-257X.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/gov.2015.10
Abstract
This article aims to bring the people to the heart of democracy measurement. Existing measurements have reinforced the idea that democracy is the domain of the state with its procedures, institutions and political elites. But where are the people in those measurements? So far, when we measure democracy we rely on experts who determine what democracy is, while people’s views have been ignored. This happens not only during the phase of conceptualization, but also during operationalization. The specific way we measure democracy feeds elitism and is emblematic of how our discipline has developed, namely an ivory tower in which political scientists define and measure democracy without taking people’s views seriously. The article proposes new people-centred measures of democracy and discusses their effect on the rankings of countries and their strengths and weaknesses. The future of the study of democracy lies in developing new measures that challenge our current understanding of democracy and assist us in developing new perspectives, thus reinvigorating democracy studies.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Government and Opposition | ||||||||
Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd. | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0017-257X | ||||||||
Official Date: | July 2015 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 50 | ||||||||
Number: | 03 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 469-494 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1017/gov.2015.10 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
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