Challenges to Democracy
Democracy is a system of government in which the people are sovereign. The word is derived from the Greek words demos (people) and kratia (power or rule). In democratic systems, power flows from the people to the political leaders they elect. Democracy also requires citizens to be informed and engaged in civic life, including participating in elections, forming political parties, and voicing their views through the media.
It also requires a level of protection for basic human rights, such as freedom of expression and association and the right to equal treatment under the law. It also requires the holding of periodic, free, and fair elections with universal suffrage to choose representatives.
The most well-established forms of democracy include multiparty political systems with independent judicial and legislative branches, constitutional republics, parliamentary democracies, and presidential democracies. But other forms of democracy exist, including some where a single party rules with popular support, and hybrid regimes that combine elements of both democracy and autocracy.
While democracy is a complex concept, its most fundamental elements are spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the United Nations Charter. It includes five core values: “equality before the law and the guarantee of human rights; the holding of periodic, free, and genuine elections; the rule of law, and the institutions for its enforcement; a political environment conducive to freedom of opinion and expression, and access by all to public information.”
Democracies understand that they must guard against all-powerful central governments and decentralize authority to the regional and local levels to ensure that people are treated equally by the laws. They conduct regular free and fair elections that are not facades for dictators or single-party control but rather authentic competitions in which every citizen has a chance to express their views, and the people can select their leaders and hold them accountable.
Although the benefits of democracy are well-known, achieving true and lasting democracy is not easy. Historically, the challenges to democracy have been numerous and varied.
In a world that is increasingly globalized, the challenge to democracy is even more pressing. The democratic principles of equality, freedom, and justice must be upheld in order to promote peace and prosperity throughout the world.
Measuring democracy is challenging because it involves evaluating many diverse institutions that are not easily comparable. The major democracy indexes, such as Polity, Freedom House and BTI, face the challenge of making their evaluations of democracy comprehensive. They do this by releasing not only the results of their assessments but also the underlying characteristics they measure. They also make available the questions and coding procedures that guide their experts and researchers. V-Dem is unique among these in providing extremely detailed descriptions of its methods and describing how each individual characteristic is measured. They also provide descriptions of their quantitative scores, with a special emphasis on how they weigh and add the different characteristics to produce the final ranking. It is this level of transparency that distinguishes it from its rivals.
Democracy is a system of government in which the people are sovereign. The word is derived from the Greek words demos (people) and kratia (power or rule). In democratic systems, power flows from the people to the political leaders they elect. Democracy also requires citizens to be informed and engaged in civic life, including participating in elections, forming political parties, and voicing their views through the media. It also requires a level of protection for basic human rights, such as freedom of expression and association and the right to equal treatment under the law. It also requires the holding of periodic, free, and fair elections with universal suffrage to choose representatives. The most well-established forms of democracy include multiparty political systems with independent judicial and legislative branches, constitutional republics, parliamentary democracies, and presidential democracies. But other forms of democracy exist, including some where a single party rules with popular support, and hybrid regimes that combine elements of both democracy and autocracy. While democracy is a complex concept, its most fundamental elements are spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the United Nations Charter. It includes five core values: “equality before the law and the guarantee of human rights; the holding of periodic, free, and genuine elections; the rule of law, and the institutions for its enforcement; a political environment conducive to freedom of opinion and expression, and access by all to public information.” Democracies understand that they must guard against all-powerful central governments and decentralize authority to the regional and local levels to ensure that people are treated equally by the laws. They conduct regular free and fair elections that are not facades for dictators or single-party control but rather authentic competitions in which every citizen has a chance to express their views, and the people can select their leaders and hold them accountable. Although the benefits of democracy are well-known, achieving true and lasting democracy is not easy. Historically, the challenges to democracy have been numerous and varied. In a world that is increasingly globalized, the challenge to democracy is even more pressing. The democratic principles of equality, freedom, and justice must be upheld in order to promote peace and prosperity throughout the world. Measuring democracy is challenging because it involves evaluating many diverse institutions that are not easily comparable. The major democracy indexes, such as Polity, Freedom House and BTI, face the challenge of making their evaluations of democracy comprehensive. They do this by releasing not only the results of their assessments but also the underlying characteristics they measure. They also make available the questions and coding procedures that guide their experts and researchers. V-Dem is unique among these in providing extremely detailed descriptions of its methods and describing how each individual characteristic is measured. They also provide descriptions of their quantitative scores, with a special emphasis on how they weigh and add the different characteristics to produce the final ranking. It is this level of transparency that distinguishes it from its rivals.