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Concept
Defective democracy
Summary
Defective democracies is a concept that was proposed by the political scientists Wolfgang Merkel, Hans-Jürgen Puhle and Aurel S. Croissant at the beginning of the 21st century to subtilize the distinctions between totalitarian, authoritarian, and democratic political systems. It is based on the concept of embedded democracy. While there are four forms of defective democracy, how each nation reaches the point of defectiveness varies. One recurring theme is the geographical location of the nation, which includes the effects of the influence of surrounding nations in the region. Other causes for defective democracies include their path of modernization, level of modernization, economic trends, social capital, civil society, political institutions, and education.
To understand what makes a democracy defective, one must establish what a healthy democratic form of government is. A democracy is a system of government in which private citizens exercise their power directly by electing officials to one or more governing bodies, such as Norway's Storting. Healthy democracies can be classified as defective when any of the key components of government are missing, or fail to properly link to one another. All democracies provide universal suffrage, free and fair elections occurring on a recurring basis, a multi-party system, multiple sources of information in the country, universal rights, and voters' decision-making unhindered by country elites or external actors.
Exclusive democracies are defective democracies because not all adult citizens have suffrage, resulting in unfair elections with no true sovereignty of the people. A major step forward in American democracy occurred with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was brought forward due to the women's suffrage movement and ensured all US citizens have the right to vote, regardless of sex. The passing of the amendment ensured the US would not remain an exclusive democracy.
Official source
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