STUDENT NAME: Kolpikova Victoria, Group 172

DEMOCRACY AND DEMOCRATISATION

Instructor: Ekim Arbatli

Exam 1

Date: March 22nd, 2021

INSTRUCTIONS

This is an open book exam, so you can use any books or articles to support your
arguments. However, you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT COPY AND PASTE
ANYTHING from any written materials (including online sources, websites, etc.)
without following proper rules. Should you need to make citation, you HAVE TO
follow the proper scientific citation. This means using quotation marks and citing the
source with author name, title, date, and page number. Citations should not exceed
10% of your total answer.

You have FOUR HOURS to complete the exam and upload your answer. Late work
will NOT be accepted under any circumstances.

ANY NON-COMPLIANCE WITH THESE RULES WILL BE CONSIDERED

QUESTIONS

You should answer ONLY THREE of the following six questions in an argumentative
essay format, choosing one question from each section (A,B,C). The answer should be
between 2 to 3 pages in length (Times New Roman, Font 12, 2.0 spacing). If an
answer is longer than three pages, the instructor will stop reading it at the end of page
3.

Section A
1. ‘It is quality rather than quantity of popular participation that matters most
in a democracy.’ Discuss.
2. ‘Referendums are an effective way to resolve constitutional questions.’ Discuss.
Section B
3. Is ‘illiberal’ democracy a populist alternative to representative democracy?
Discuss with examples.
4. What is democratic consolidation? How can we tell whether a democracy is
consolidated or not? Discuss with at least two country examples.
Section C
5. Should we expect a ‘fourth wave of democratisation’? Discuss with relation to
Huntington.
6. Can decolonisation ever produce stable democracy?
1. ‘It is quality rather than quantity of popular participation that matters most in a

democracy.’ Discuss.

When asked where you want to compare, what is more important for democracy - quality

or quantity of civil participation - it is almost impossible to give a definite answer and choose

between two. Democracy cannot be democracy in the absence of effective participation of

civilians. Therefore, the thesis of this essay is that the most important thing in a democracy is a

harmonious combination of the quantity and quality of public participation. Since these two

concepts are interrelated, in the first part of the argument, we will consider cases where the

quantity of participation is greater than the quality, and also where the quality is greater than the

quantity.

First of all, for a democracy the quantity of participation is crucially important, because it

means that all citizens have an opportunity to put forward his or her position. Still, high quantity

of participants would not guarantee the efficiency of democracy. One of the reasons is that the

majority of citizens lack of competencies and necessary knowledge. Therefore, they can be led

and express not their own opinion, but the opinion of interested parties. Moreover, if to pay too

much attention to the quantity of participation it may result in uneven policy of the country, for

example, ignoring policy directions that are not interesting for the majority of citizens, such as

international relations or international security. Therefore, the quantity of the participants itself

cannot be sufficient for a democracy.

In contrast, if consider that the state lack of quantity participation this also creates

problems for the effective operation of democracy. If in a democracy there is no opportunity for

the majority of the people to participate in politics and express their political agenda, this entails

a number of difficulties. For example, in this case, the opinion of the population and their right to

defend their rights in the state are ignored. Moreover, in such a case, access for minorities and

certain ethnic or religious groups may be limited. This can lead to uprisings and revolutions, as
was the case during the French Revolution. Therefore, the lack of the amount of participation not

only cannot be called democracy, but also can lead to discontent in the society.

Thus, to summarize the previous two arguments, we can say that the overabundance and

lack of quantity participation in democracy is harmful as well as overabundance and lack of

quality participation. As a result, a balanced approach to reconciling the quantity and quality of

civilian participation is necessary for the effective functioning of democracy. Referring to Dahl

(1991) providing people with a sufficient number of opportunities to participate in political

decision-making, this increases their competence and, consequently, the quality of the decisions

and political positions they take.

To conclude, it is difficult to highlight the importance of one component in political

participation, these are two inseparable and integral parts of democracy - the quality and quantity

of political participation.
3. Is ‘illiberal’ democracy a populist alternative to representative democracy? Discuss with

examples.

To some extent, illiberal democracies have features and attributes of representative

democracy. However, such a regime implies the presence of populism. First of all, the term

illiberal democracy is understood as a state with lack of universal suffrage and inability to

establish majoritarianism in elections. In turn, populism means the commitment of the leader to

one part of the citizens, isolating them from the whole of society. The thesis will argue that,

despite the fact that illiberal democracy is very similar to democracy, it cannot be called its

alternative, since it lacks all necessary parts of democratic state, for instance the human rights

and universal suffrage.

The first argument claims that illiberal democracy cannot be correlate with representative

democracy because it ignores the individual human rights of citizens. In an illiberal democracy,

populists promote the idea that people are unitary body which should not be divided. Such

approach is more corresponds with authoritarian regimes rather than with representative

democracy. According to Freeden (2017), the populists’ vision of the people in the state is

simplified and restricts the human right to choose belonging to different social or ethnic groups.

Therefore, in illiberal democracy populists strengthen majoritarian system, but at the same time

neglect individual human rights to have personal opinion and personal choice.

Secondly, in illiberal democracies higher priority is given to majoritarianism.

Consequently, the interests of minority groups are undermined and are not taken into account. As

Zakaria (1997) states that populism ignores liberal values such as minority protection and

therefore does not contain liberal values. As an inference, due to the populists features illiberal

democracy cannot be compared with representative democracy as it does not satisfies the basic

principles of democracy.
 Still, as a counterargument, it may be claimed that illiberal democracy is a populist

version of representative democracy, because in both regimes the representative is elected.

Referring to Karl (1995) this type of government that have elections but lack minority

representation can be referred as transitional to representative democracy states and can be seen

as half democracies. As an example, Latin America states (Peru or Mexico) after the third wave

of democratization had the characteristics of democracy and can be associated with it.

I contract to previous argument the regime cannot be claimed to be partially democratic

with the absence of other features of democracy other than election. Therefore, the lack of civil

liberries does not allow illiberal democracy to be a version of representative democracy.

Moreover Phillip (1999) argues that elections alone are not exclusive to become a democracy. As

a result, the presence of only a majoritarian electoral system cannot bring an illiberal democracy

closer to being called a democracy. Аn illiberal democracy is still an authoritarian regime.

In conclusion, an illiberal democracy has the features of a representative democracy.

Therefore, on the one hand, we can say that this regime is an alternative to democracy and has

features of populism. However, based on the opinions of researchers and examples of illiberal

countries, this statement is not true. In fact, illiberal democracy cannot be called a version of

democracy for several reasons. First, although majoritarian elections are present in an illiberal

democracy, minorities are ignored. Moreover, such countries also ignore freedoms and human

rights, which undermines their ability to be democratic.

The democratization process can be divided into three waves (Huntington, 1991).

Throughout the entire period of democratisation and these three waves, there were countries that

became democracies through the process of decolonization. The essay argues that decolonisation

can provoke the creation of democracy. However, it depends, firstly, on the nature of

decolonisation, and secondly, on the surrounding countries, how democratic the international

community is or not. The assay will provide historical examples to support the thesis.

First, the situation when decolonisation leads to the democratisation of the state can be

distinguished by the democracy of the country colonial power. For example, the former colonies

of Great Britain were able to successfully apply democracy on their territory. These are countries

such as the USA, India, and Ireland. From these cases, we can conclude that, indeed, through

decolonisation, it is possible to increase the number of democracies in the world and that gaining

independence from the colonial power helped countries to acquire forms of democratic

government.

Despite successful examples of democratisation, such as the United States, not all

countries that separated from the colonial power and gained autonomy moved to democracy and

were able to successfully apply it. For example, Pakistan is not a country with a democratic

regime, but on the contrary is an autocracy. In addition, if we analyze the history of gaining

independence in Latin America, then we can argue that decolonization does not lead to complete

democratization. This is due to the lack of the necessary democratic institutions. Despite the fact

that in the countries of Latin America one can distinguish hybrid forms of democracy, they

cannot be called sustainable democracy.

Secondly, the decolonisation of a number of countries began after the third wave of the

democratisation of Huntington (1991), which created favorable conditions for the creation of
democracy in the newly independent countries. For example, Papua New Guinea gained

independence from Australia in 1975 and was able to successfully achieve democracy on its

territory. This can be called one of the successful examples of democratisation.

To sum up, decolonisation can indeed contribute to the successful democratisation of the

state and contribute to the establishment of sustainable democracy in the newly independent

country. However, history shows that not in all cases decolonisation inevitably leads to success

and it turns out to achieve democracy. Despite this, answering the question of the essay, it is safe

to say that decolonisation is capable of creating a stable democracy, although these are rare

cases.