![]() ![]() For, in addition, via the influence of organised interests, there has to be an ongoing debate on political decisions during the legislative period. The sole binding of policy formation to the act of voting is insufficient for a democratic process. What is at stake is the most inclusive possible representation of citizens’ preferences. Intermediate organisations like political parties, associations and civil society should be structured in such a way that they are able to articulate, select and bundle social interests, in order to communicate them to governmental decision-making instances and, at the same time, to allow for a feedback effect. ![]() Regulation of the Intermediate Sphere: Quality of Parties, Interest Groups and Civil Society The sole standard of legal control is that government action respects the rule of law. It occurs, above all, by way of the official oversight instances within the network of governmental and para-governmental institutions. Control takes place by way of the political participation of citizens or intermediary organisations in the political sphere or the sphere of civil society or via media, which expose violations of the rule of law in the public sphere and, if necessary, undertake legal measures. Vertical and horizontal accountability are to be included in the definition of the dimension of control. Such oversight applies to both the government and the elected officeholders. Whereas the dimension of freedom gives expression to the preferences of individual citizens and organised interests, in the dimension of political and legal control, the actions of these agents are now directed toward the monitoring of government activity. Political and Legal Control as Political and Legal Oversight of the Government By analysing the debates in democracy theory, a conception of democracy can be obtained that, on the one hand, is based on the dimensions of political freedom, political equality, and political and legal control and, on the other, distinguishes between five essential institutions that cut across the dimensions (procedures of decision, regulation of the intermediate sphere, public communication, guarantee of rights, and rules settlement and implementation). It is precisely this understanding of democracy that underlies the democracy matrix as standard. Such definitions enrich the minimal democracy concept only to the extent necessary for a differentiated analysis, and they, thereby, remain within the boundaries of a narrow and procedural understanding of democracy. Middle-range definitions are thus much more promising. Hence, democracy cannot be materially defined by way of the production of certain policy achievements, but rather democracy is the procedural framework within which different policy solutions are first negotiated (Lauth 2004 Munck 2012). ![]() Nonetheless, this idea is not convincing, since it posits a definite policy achievement, which, however, has not been established by the sovereign itself, as norm. When this understanding of democracy refers to the output side, it is also called a material conception of democracy. (2004), have likewise proven to be inappropriate, since, by including socio-economic factors and the welfare state, they overextend the concept of democracy in the sense of a “conceptual stretching” (Sartori 1970 Collier/Mahon 1993). Maximal definitions, like social democracy, which serves to orient the approach of O’Donnell et al. On the other hand, it fails to provide a nuanced treatment of the differences within the grey area between autocracies and democracies, as well as within established democracies, in the case of which it is not so much the level of development of the characteristic “elections” that differs as rather the quality of the rule of law, of the media system, of the separation of powers, and of intermediation. Thanks to its recourse to the concept of electoral democracy, it largely succeeds in identifying the key characteristics that distinguish between autocratic and democratic systems. There is a large consensus about the minimal definition, which defines democracy by way of the repeated holding of elections with a minimum amount of competition between candidates and the participative inclusion of broad parts of the population (Dahl 1971) nonetheless, it has been pointed out that this definition is considerably too limited (Lauth 2004 Munck 2012). ![]()
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