Embedded and defective democracies

In the literature on democratization the mainstream of theoretical and empirical consolidology uses the dichotomy autocracy versus democracy. Democracy is generally conceived of as ‘electoral democracy’. This simple dichotomy does not allow a distinction between consolidated liberal democracies and their diminished sub-types. However, over half of all the new electoral democracies represent specific variants of diminished sub-types of democracy, which can be called defective democracies. Starting from the root concept of embedded democracies, which consists of five interdependent partial regimes (electoral regime, political rights, civil rights, horizontal accountability, effective power to govern), the…