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The Difficult Art of Classifying Regimes: The Case of Paraguay
Author(s) -
Boström Mikael
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9477.1994.tb00146.x
Subject(s) - authoritarianism , democracy , politics , political science , political economy , universal suffrage , suffrage , state (computer science) , democratization , sociology , law , algorithm , computer science
This article deals with the difficult art of classifying political regimes. Such classifications are important since they lay the ground for a central field of research in political science, namely the causes and consequences of regime changes. The article focuses on Paraguay. which has experienced a process of transition from authoritarian to democratic rule over the past five years. Four criteria of democracy are used to evaluate the state of democracy in this country in early 1994: competitive elections and universal suffrage. broad and autonomous political participation. political freedoms and accountability of elected organs. The investigation of the Paraguayan case highlights the problems involved in using a dichotomous regime variable in empirical research. Paraguay is a democracy when it comes to freedom of speech, but hardly in term of the political situation in the countryside. It also demonstrates that the widely used Schumpeterian definition of democracy is risky in the sense that it may conceal more than it reveals about the regime under study. Finally, the article sheds light on the need for in‐depth case studies for the classification of political regimes.