We have collected a number of useful questions that have previously been asked of IDEA's Democracy Assessment team and the network of experts. If you do not find the answer to your question below, you can ask our exports a new question.
Democracy assessments
Democracy is a comprehensive concept - whose tenets cover not only civil and political, but also social, economic, and even cultural rights. The guarantee of civil and political rights needs no special justification in a democracy assessment, since these rights are manifestly necessary for participation in the political process in association with others. The inclusion of an economic and social rights audit is justifiable in terms of both process and outcome. As regards process, it is a necessary condition for the exercise of civil and political rights that people should be alive to exercise them and should have the capacities and resources to do so effectively. At the same time, people do - rightly - judge the quality of a democracy in terms of its ability to secure them the basic economic and social rights on which a minimally decent human life depends.
Civil and Political Rights and Economic and Social/Cultural Rights are indivisible and interdependent. In the developing societies in particular, economic and social rights hold vital importance to democracy. Democracy should set out economic and social rights to achieve social justice and thereby make democracy inclusive.
Yes. The SoD assessment methodology was designed to be flexible and context responsive to allow those undertaking the assessment to make decisions about what was relevant to include in assessing the quality of their democracy, and what was not. However; such a decision must result from consultations with relevant stakeholders as part of the preparations for the assessment, and not just be informed by the views of the assessment team. This is because a state of democracy assessment needs to be relevant to the country if it is to have any reform potential.
