Embedded democracy
[1][2][3] The term "embedded democracy" was coined by political scientists Wolfgang Merkel, Hans-Jürgen Puhle, and Aurel Croissant, who identified "five interdependent partial regimes" necessary for an embedded democracy: electoral regime, political participation, civil rights, horizontal accountability, and the power of the elected representatives to govern.
[9] Merkel writes about five different forms of internal embeddedness, with democratic electoral regime occupying the central position because "it is the most obvious expression of the sovereignty of the people, the participation of citizens, and the equal weight allotted to their individual preferences.
[10] According to Merkel, participatory rights "make the public arena an independent political sphere of action, where organizational and communicative power is developed.
[23] In Merkel's vision of embedded democracy, citizens are able to form independent interest groups and organize parties to help them express their political preferences.
[23] Political participation is not limited to traditional institutionalized channels for expression; it can take place in arenas like the private media and civil society.
[30][31] As government bureaucracies have grown in size, people have generally participated in political processes less frequently, especially those in low socioeconomic groups.
[32] Some countries have more equitable voting patterns than others; for instance, Denmark has less income inequality than the United States as well as higher rates of political participation.
[37] Fishkin acknowledges difficulties in achieving mass participation: people view their opinions as statistically insignificant, and they are often uneducated about political topics and easily influenced by the media.
In modern democracies, most citizens avoid discussing politics with people they disagree with, which limits the potential for conciliation and compromise.
[49][23] To avoid this, the executive and legislative branches need barriers in place that prevent individuals, groups, or the political opposition from being oppressed by majority decisions.
[45][21] In an embedded democracy, rights are also established to protect against illegitimate arrest, exile, terror, torture or unjustifiable intervention into personal life.
[21] In an embedded democracy, the branches of government should be able to function with a reasonable amount of autonomy despite the fact that they are not wholly separate but instead "check each other reciprocally, without one body dominating or interfering with the constitutionally defined core-sphere of the others.
"[21] Within Merkel's model of embedded democracy, the regime of horizontal accountability works to constitutionally ensure that an appropriate amount of power is shared among the different institutions, which helps secure the civil rights of the people of the state.
[58] In these kinds of democracies, the underpinnings of political participation are compromised as the general populace is only allowed “low intensity citizenship,” with most decisions left to extra-governmental, non-democratic forces.
[54] Hermann Heller stresses that a sufficiently homogeneous economic basis among citizens provides for equal participation in the democratic process.
[78] Once citizens have reached an adequate social and economic standing, they can form their own independent opinions and participate equally in the democratic process.
[80] In the case of protection from state power, the philosopher John Locke's idea of civil society as separate from the political sphere[81] is referenced.
[82][83] Merkel also references Montesquieu's concept of institutionalized civil society to check the power of the government and to promote balance within a state.
[85][86] Local associations are meant to create trust and foster a sense of civic responsibility that is carried out into the national level as well as the political sphere.
[87][83] According to Habermas, civil society can also provide a platform for the economically and socially disadvantaged to air grievances with the government and improve their state.
[98][105] Additionally, constitutional norms in an illiberal democracy have little impact on government actions, and individual civil rights are either partially repressed or not yet established.
[108] The following are illiberal democracies: Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, Philippines, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
Apartheid South Africa is an example of an exclusive democracy because not all members of the adult population were guaranteed the right of universal suffrage.
[114] However, the power of the executive in a delegative democracy is still restricted in the sense that the president has heavy control of the state only for the length of his term.
Most of the research on delegative democracies has concerned the populist leaders of Central and South America who used the executive branch to govern the country as they saw fit.
One modern example of a frozen democracy is Ukraine, whereby following Russia's illegal invasion, martial law was declared, thereby suspending the elections.
[137] According to Møller and Skanning, there are also inconsistencies between Merkel's original papers on embedded and defective democracy and later works by his colleagues Aurel Croissant and Hans-Jürgen Puhle.
