Tag: democracy

Toward a New Perspective on Forms and Sites of Democratic Life

How do we determine if democracy is succeeding or failing? Is it people “watching” politics or “doing” politics or both? These are questions that Dr. Andrea Felicetti engages with in his perspective piece, as traditional understandings of civic responsibilities in democracy are reconsidered. According to Felicetti, behaviors once deemed problematic to the health of a democratic society—anonymity, non-participation and spectatorship are now being reconsidered and they might have some benefits for democratic life. In particular, spectatorship, or merely observing political activities, is highlighted in this article as many citizens choose to be bystanders in politics. However, Felicetti encourages us to rethink the role of spectatorship in creating a vibrant democracy, asking the following questions: What forms might positive spectatorship take? In what contexts might we find this? How can we observe them empirically?

How Can Spectatorship Be Positive for Democracy?

Spectatorship has long been criticized as detrimental or burdensome to encouraging engagement with the democratic process—citizens are not engaged or willing to be involved in political activities. That said, Felicetti challenges us to consider that observing politics can be a positive stimulus for political engagement. Citizens can better understand their political environment and the issues being discussed through moments of observatory reflection. At the same time, watching citizens can question information, improving their ability to think critically. Moreover, Felicetti proposes that the learning of political dynamics through spectatorship leads in some cases to eventual collaboration as citizens unite around common interests and form collective identity. In this sense, while many are quick to discount spectatorship as antithetical to democratic engagement, it is actually necessary for building political understanding and action.

Where Does Spectatorship Take Place?

There are several locations where we can witness positive displays of spectatorship take place, according to Felicetti. He illustrates deliberative assemblies, participatory governance, social movements, and the workplace or schools as the common sites of positive spectatorship. These real-world spaces provide opportunities for citizens to present their perspectives and collectively reflect on shared challenges. For example, in the workplace, we do not just work; we are actively observing how shared challenges are managed, thus shaping our sense of democratic responsibility. By empirically examining positive spectatorship in these daily environments, Felicetti believes that researchers can begin to understand how people process their problems together.

Why It Matters

The emphasis on the positive forms of spectatorship in this article ultimately reconceptualizes how political theorists think about current democratic engagement. These activities are necessary for a healthy democratic landscape, challenging traditional arguments that participation alone is a signal of a healthy democracy. Felicetti encourages future researchers to pursue qualitative and quantitative approaches to study positive spectatorship in real-world environments—including social media and digital platforms. By pursuing an empirical-based strategy, we can start to engage with overlooked elements of democratic life beyond participation and learn from a massive segment of the democratic ecosystem.

Read the original article in Policy Studies Journal:

Felicetti, Andrea. 2025. “Toward a New Perspective on Forms and Sites of Democratic Life.” Policy Studies Journal, 53(4): 1098–1107. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.70021.

About the Article’s Author(s)

Andrea Felicetti (PhD, Australian National University) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Law, and International Studies at the University of Padua. His research interests and teaching activities revolve around democratic theories, public spheres, and governance. 

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Political Institutions, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, and Policy Disasters

by E.J. Fagan

The classic authoritarian promise is to impose order on a disorderly society.  Benito promised to make the trains run on time. Donald Trump promised that he alone could save the country. The Chinese Communist Party promises record economic growth. All authoritarians ask that, in return, societies give up their political freedoms. If they can just push through all the noise and enact their vision for public policy without friction, they will make your life better. It is a tempting bargain for many people.

However, these promises are false. The political institutions of liberal democracies–such as free speech, rule of law, a vibrant political society, and an egalitarian democratic system–also make it better off. Liberal democracies are not only freer societies, but also have higher economic growth and human development indices.

In “Political institutions, punctuated equilibrium theory and policy disasters,” I add to that literature, using punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) to examine why some countries experience more of the most extreme policy failures than others. Briefly, PET posits that governments show a pattern of policy change where very little happens for a long period of time followed by short periods of explosive change. Governments that ignore problems for longer tend to have more pronounced policy punctuations to make up for lost time, while governments that address problems sooner tend to enact smaller changes. Authoritarian countries tend to have an even more punctuated pattern of change: they ignore problems for longer, then pass very large changes when they finally get around to doing something about it.

I study two very different types of policy disasters in this article. First, I use data on financial crises, such as sovereign debt defaults, hyperinflation, and major bank failures. Second, I use data on high-casualty natural and technological disasters. Each dataset contains observations beginning in the 1960s.

Figure 1 shows the relative frequency of both types of disaster in governing systems, compared to liberal democracies. Notably, authoritarian countries experience nearly twice as many financial crises. Closed autocracies, such as China or North Korea, experience more natural and technological disasters, but the result is not statistically significant. Electoral autocracy, which hold non-competitive single-party elections, are even worse.

Electoral democracies, which hold competitive elections but lack the free speech, press, civil society, and rule of law of liberal democracies, perform just as poorly, or even worse, as authoritarian systems. This result suggests that democracy needs these liberal institutions to function. Without them, countries like Turkey and Nigeria struggle to detect and solve problems before they become disasters.

Figure 1: Regime Types and the Frequency of Policy Disasters

Figure 2 examines the relationship between policy disasters and political institutions. The results suggest that countries with political institutions that are more inclusive and allow for free society have fewer policy disasters. Further, countries with more streamlined institutions, such as unitary systems and parliamentary systems, are better at solving problems before they become disasters.

Figure 2: Policy Disasters and Political Institutions

In conclusion, authoritarians make far more mistakes than their liberal democratic counterparts.  Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen once observed that every famine in world history occurred under an authoritarian government. These results suggest that authoritarian mistakes are broader than just famines; detecting problems before they become severe is authoritarianism’s biggest weakness.

At the same time, these results are a warning for backsliding democracies. Some leaders may want to maintain some semblance of a democracy, but eliminate the annoying problems created by a free press, independent judiciary or empowered civil society. But, democracy can’t function without these institutions. Without them, leaders in weak democracies are flying blind.

You can read the original article in Policy Studies Journal at

Fagan, E. J.(2023). Political institutions, punctuated equilibrium theory, and policy disasters. Policy Studies Journal, 51: 243–263. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12460

About the Author

E.J. Fagan is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois Chicago. He studies agenda setting, think tanks, political parties and policymaking in the U.S. Congress.




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