Explaining and Comparing Quality of Democracy in Quadruple Helix Structures: The Quality of Democracy in the United States and in Austria, Challenges and Opportunities for Development

2014 ◽  
pp. 117-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
David F. J. Campbell ◽  
Elias G. Carayannis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Quadruple Helix ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

Freedom, Equality and the Quality of Democracy

2015 ◽  
pp. 1778-1804
Author(s):  
Thorsten D. Barth
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Research Question ◽  
The United States ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
Quintuple Helix ◽  
Essential Questions ◽  
Democratic Life

Freedom and equality are the content, the substance and the tension in a liberal democracy of today. Freedom and equality describe the design, stability and the quality of a democracy. Especially in a Quintuple Helix Model, the quality of democracy and sustainable development are closely related, because a high-quality democracy is a prerequisite for promoting sustainability in democracies. By investigating the quality of democracy this article develops two theses: 1.) Democracy with their quality rises or falls with the expression of freedom and/or equality; 2.) Democracy generates its stability from a balanced interaction between freedom and equality. With the concept of Democratic Life this article examines these two theses: Democratic Life as newly developed concept measures the quality of democracy with providing information about the type of a democracy and an approach to measure a democracy´s democratic development for the top 20 of the Democracy Ranking (2009). The central keys of the Democratic Life concept are the ‘Index of Classification' and the ‘Democratic-Life-Index', which are formed from an ‘Index of Freedom' and an ‘Index of Equality'. By empirical examination of the research question of Democratic Life two essential questions in the modern democratic theory can be investigated: 1.) How democratic is a democracy? 2.) How much freedom and equality does a liberal democracy need? The countries analyzed for the Democratic Life concept in this article are the United States, Australia, Sweden and Germany in comparison between 1995 and 2008. This degree of democratic quality will create a lot of problems towards developing sustainability in a democracy, because in the United States there is currently a big disparity between freedom and equality.

Freedom, Equality and the Quality of Democracy

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thorsten D. Barth
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Research Question ◽  
The United States ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
Essential Questions ◽  
Democratic Life

Freedom and equality are the content, the substance and the tension in a liberal democracy of today. Freedom and equality describe the design, stability and the quality of a democracy. Especially in a Quintuple Helix Model, the quality of democracy and sustainable development are closely related, because a high-quality democracy is a prerequisite for promoting sustainability in democracies. By investigating the quality of democracy this article develops two theses: 1.) Democracy with their quality rises or falls with the expression of freedom and/or equality; 2.) Democracy generates its stability from a balanced interaction between freedom and equality. With the concept of Democratic Life this article examines these two theses: Democratic Life as newly developed concept measures the quality of democracy with providing information about the type of a democracy and an approach to measure a democracy´s democratic development for the top 20 of the Democracy Ranking (2009). The central keys of the Democratic Life concept are the ‘Index of Classification’ and the ‘Democratic-Life-Index’, which are formed from an ‘Index of Freedom’ and an ‘Index of Equality’. By empirical examination of the research question of Democratic Life two essential questions in the modern democratic theory can be investigated: 1.) How democratic is a democracy? 2.) How much freedom and equality does a liberal democracy need? The countries analyzed for the Democratic Life concept in this article are the United States, Australia, Sweden and Germany in comparison between 1995 and 2008. This degree of democratic quality will create a lot of problems towards developing sustainability in a democracy, because in the United States there is currently a big disparity between freedom and equality.

Comparative Perspectives on Inequality and the Quality of Democracy in the United States

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 841-856 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred Stepan ◽  
Juan J. Linz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Science ◽  
American Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
The World ◽  
Splendid Isolation

When Jeffrey Isaac approached us to review some recent works in American politics from a comparative perspective, we gladly accepted the task, believing it important to help overcome what some see as the “splendid isolation” of American politics. Indeed, the invitation arrived at a propitious time because, after completing our most recent book, we critically reflected on the fact that we had unfortunately written almost nothing on the oldest, and one of the most diverse, democracies in the world, the United States. We thus agreed to contribute some thoughts on the matter, recognizing the limits of our knowledge of the entire field of American politics, but acknowledging, too, our belief that the current distancing of the study of America from the analysis of other democracies impoverishes modern political science.

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