We provide new measures of ethnic, linguistic and religious fractionalization for about 190 countries. These measures are more comprehensive than those previously used in the economics literaturer and we compare our new variables with those previously used. We also revisit the question of the effects of ethnic, linguistic and religious heterogeneity on the quality of institutions and growth.

The basic argument of this article is that the globalization perspective in all of its variations (and there are many) exaggerates the amount of change in the contemporary global system. States are for the most part exactly what they have always been, the most important actors in the modern international system -- which is not to argue that they are now, or have ever been, immune to influence from other actors or that they have ever been able to fully control economic or other kinds of transactions. The hyperglobalist argument -- which sees states as fundamentally outmoded, incapable of carrying on the basic functions of governance -- is wrong. Transformationist arguments are also for the most part incorrect, but here it is necessary to distinguish among different kinds of claims, which are obfuscated by the emphasis on complexity, interconnectedness and multiple actors.

When Terry Karl and I were searching for the most generic definition of “modern representative political democracy,” we hit upon the concept of accountability. We wanted a definition that was not dependent upon a specific institution or set of institutions, that was not uniquely liberal or excessively defensive in its presumptions, that was neither exclusively procedural nor substantive in its content, and that could travel well across world cultural regions. None of those in widespread use in the burgeoning literature on democratization fit our, admittedly demanding, bill of particulars, especially not the so-called Schumpeterian definition or the many versions derived from it. All of these focused too single-mindedly on the regular conduct of elections that (allegedly) offered citizens a choice between alternative set of rulers (with no attention to the relations of citizens and rulers leading up to the holding of such presumably “free and fair” elections or to those prevailing after such episodic events). Indeed, many of the more theoretically inclined scholars who relied on such a definition seemed embarrassed in doing so and excused themselves by arguing that, even though elections are not the only manifestation of democracy, they were easy to measure (even to dichotomize!) and/or that alternative, so-called substantive definitions of “it” were subject to partisan manipulation. Terry and I were all too aware that some accountability; indeed, it gives them greater legitimacy when they have to act against immediate popular opinion.

South Korea (Korea hereafter) and Taiwan are widely recognized as the two most successful third-wave democracies in Asia (Chu, Diamond, and Shin, 2001; Diamond and Plattner, 1998; Shin and Lee, 2003). For more than a decade, these two new democracies have regularly held free and competitive elections at all levels of their respective governments. Both nationally and locally, citizens choose the heads of the executive branches and the members of the legislatures thorough regularly scheduled electoral contests. Unlike many countries in the region, moreover, the two countries have peacefully transferred power to opposition parties, the Millennium Democratic Party in Korea and the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan. Accordingly, there is little doubt that the political regimes of Korea and Taiwan fully meet the democratic principle of popular sovereignty featuring free and fair elections, universal adult suffrage, and multiparty competition. Nonetheless, little is known about how well their current regimes meet other important principles of liberal democracy and uphold its basic values such as freedom, equality, and justice.

While the Third Wave of Democracy swept through many African countries in the 1990s, South Africa and Ghana stand out as two of the continent’s real success stories politically. Beginning in the late 1980s, South Africa’s leaders successfully steered the country out of the shadow of apparently irreconcilable conflict and unavoidable racial or ethnic civil war to create a common nation. Since 1994, they have negotiated two democratic constitutions, and held four successful nation-wide elections for national and local government. South Africa’s Constitution has become the darling of liberals and social democrats the world over because of its inclusion of an extensive set of political and socio- economic rights.ii Starting in 1993, Ghana has enjoyed ten years of democratic, constitutional rule, holding three successful multi-party elections (with the third producing a peaceful electoral turnover).

Equality points to one of the critical dimensions along which the quality of democracy varies. 1 What is at stake is political equality, not equality in everything human beings have reason to value, nor equality in the most important structures of social inequality – in class, status, and power. However, political equality is intertwined with, and profoundly shaped by these structures. Political equality is affected by social and economic inequality in two broad ways: dominant groups can use their social and economic power resources more or less directly in the political sphere, and they can shape the views, values, and preferences of subordinate groups by virtue of their status and their influence on education, cultural production, and mass communication, exerting “cultural hegemony”. Political equality will be extremely limited unless these effects of social and economic equality are substantially contained.

In his organizing essay, Leonardo Morlino (2003) offers a minimal definition of democracy, based on multiple information sources and the competitive election of those who dominate the policymaking process. He then suggests five dimensions of “quality” on which working democracies might vary. One of these dimensions is “the responsiveness or correspondence of the political decisions to the desires of the citizens (3).” He suggests that this dimension is closely connected to accountability, but evaluates more substantively how government policies correspond to citizen’s demands. While some democratic theorists have defined democracy itself in terms of such responsiveness, I shall follow Morlino’s general suggestion that we think of it is a desirable quality of performance, rather than as part of the definition of democracy. This approach is also in line with Dahl’s suggestion that citizens inducing the government to do what they want is a justification for democracy, not a definition of it (1989, 95).

There is a reading of democracy in both these countries that is not optimistic. In a recent assessment of the nature of Brazil's democratic regime, Kurt Weyland characterized Brazil's democracy as "low quality." He bases this characterization on Brazil's gross level of inequality and the incapacity of Brazilian civil society effectively to demand that government redress inequality. He goes on to argue that it is precisely because Brazil's democracy is of "low quality" that it can survive so well.

This paper will assess the "quality of democracy" in India and Bangladesh. This paper we will argue that the democratic successes and failures are in large measure a function of the socio-political milieu within which the democratic transitions took place in both states. It will also argue that despite a range of striking shortcomings India has made significant progress in a number of arenas toward enhancing the quality of democracy. Bangladesh, on the other hand, has failed to make similar progress. Instead there is much evidence that suggests that the quality of democracy in Bangladesh is actually regressing.

For much of the past decade I have been engaged in assessing the level or quality of democracy in a number of countries, both for the UK Democratic Audit and for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) in Stockholm. As a culmination of this work so far I and colleagues have published a handbook on democracy assessment (Beetham et al., 2002a), a comparative summary of eight assessments from developed and developing countries and our latest democratic audit of the UK, updated to include the Iraq war and its consequences.