Substantive Aspirations Beyond the Process: Meanings of Democracy in Brazil, India, UK, and US

This paper compares and contrasts meanings of democracy in Brazil, India, UK, US. Procedural definitions of democracy focus on a few minimum features: free, fair & competitive elections; universal suffrage; broad protection of civil liberties; absence of nonelected tutelary authorities; and reasonably level playing field between incumbents and opposition (esp. Levistky and Way 2010). However, other scholars go beyond these institutional debates to question the very ‘quality’ of modern democracy (O’Donnel 1998). They claim that in some countries, despite the formal existence of such institutions, the ‘domestication of democracy’ (Smith 2005) led to a ‘democratic deficit’ putting them closer to a ‘competitive oligarchy’, rather than a ‘polyarchy’ (Dahl 1971). We use an original interpretivist database of the national identity discourses of these countries to systematically ‘overhear’ how the democratic identity is described in each of them over time (1990–2010). We find that discourses in all four countries consider procedural elements as essential components of democracy. The democratic identity is also consolidated across both elites and masses in India, UK and US. However, we find counter-discourses in Brazil and India that highlight corruption, inequality, growing hardships, and incompetent governance, and indicate an aspiration for more substantive democracy. In India, the inefficacy of procedural institutions are seen as threats to democracy that must be addressed. Brazilians, however, view their democracy as more limited as a consequence of these inefficacies. Together, these findings suggest that while procedural institutions are an important starting point, substantive outcomes are crucial for sustaining liberal democracies.