ABSTRACT
Debates about the nature of democracy and the idea of consolidation outlined in Chapter 3 enable scholars to go far beyond a mere discussion of electoral procedures and who gets to vote when assessing democracy. It gives them useful tools to determine how democracy may be faring overall in a given country and which countries may, by certain measures, be more democratic than others. In short, it allows them to assess the quality of democracy in different countries and, where necessary, to recommend ways of improving it (see Diamond and Morlino eds, 2005). Has a country progressed beyond being merely an electoral democracy, which provides citizens with access to power, towards becoming a liberal democracy, which is distinguished by a distinctive mode of exercising power based upon limited government, the separation of powers, and the rule of law? Has it progressed even further towards dealing with pressing social issues that make it even more fully inclusionary, whereby the principle of equality before the law actively translates into equal opportunities (see Abente Brun, 2008)?
