Erik Liam Severson
Defining ‘democracy’ has proven to be an arduous task, but Erik Liam Severson asks whether we need a definitive definition. He finds that the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein can offer support for the project, but indicates the value of having an open, rather than total, texture and definition of democracy Read more
Anna Drake
How should we approach a database of democracy’s words when many of these collected democracies fail to respect people’s moral and political equality? According to Anna Drake, if we want meaningful narratives to emerge, then we must confront foundational challenges to democracy and centre these in our analysis. Read more
James Wong
While Jean-Paul Gagnon’s data mountain project aims to rescue an abandoned science, others reject the study as not genuinely scientific. James Wong advocates a pluralist view of the epistemic commitments of (political) science and argues that Gagnon’s project can be grounded in scientific anti-realism and constructivism Read more
Lucy J Parry
Lucy J Parry recognises the value of a database of democracy but is concerned about its utility in the real world. If this data mountain is to bolster democratic innovation, we need to step away from detached order and engage with the messy reality of democratic innovations in practice Read more
Shreeya Patil
Soft power diplomacy has always been important to India, as the world’s largest democracy, with a rich heritage, culture and ambitious aspirations. This has never more so than under the current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Shreeya Patil explores the different facets of this important form of diplomacy Read more
Matthijs Bogaards
Can we see autocracy more clearly if we see it as the opposite of democracy? Or do we need to look at autocracy as a category in its own right? Matthijs Bogaards provides an answer through a critical examination of the concept of defective autocracy, the mirror of defective democracy. Read more
Alex Prior
What does a coastline have in common with effective rhetoric? Each component resembles something bigger, and bigger, and bigger. And what can this sort of fractal pattern show us about politics? To Alex Prior, fractals illustrate successful representation, and the impulses that drive it Read more
Adrián del Río
Since the 80s, electoral autocracy has been considered the most common form of dictatorship. Yet, as Adrián del Río shows, little is known about what this regime is and how we can recognise it. There is, in fact, only a 34% probability of datasets agreeing on examples Read more
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