ABSTRACT
Democracy is an essentially contested concept. But to map the spread of democracy, assess levels of democracy, and discuss the causes and consequences of democracy as well as the challenges it faces, we need conceptual anchors. In this chapter, we present guidelines for conceptualization and use them to construct a typology of six regime types, three of which reflect different forms of electoral democracy. The typology is based on the premise that contested elections constitute the ‘undisputed’ core of modern democracy, conceived of as a political method that enables citizens to peacefully change who is in government and in parliament. We also discuss subtypes of autocracy. One well-known typology uses differences in ideology, mobilization, and repression to distinguish between totalitarian, authoritarian, and sultanistic regimes. Another typology focuses on the power base of political rulers and distinguishes between military autocracy, party autocracy, personalist autocracy, and monarchy. Finally, we introduce assessment criteria for measures of political regimes.
[A] term that means anything means nothing. And so it has become with ‘democracy’, which nowadays is not so much a term of restricted and specific meaning as a vague endorsement of a popular idea. (Dahl 1989: 2)