PECULIARITIES AND PROBLEMS OF MEASURING THE LEVEL OF DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS

Abstract

Having analyzed the main approaches to measuring the level of democracy, the author convincingly shows that significant attention in such methods is paid to elections as one of the key attributes, indicators and catalysts of democracy, but there are no separate scientific tools for measuring the level of democratic elections. The author concludes that, by analogy, it is possible to develop a scientific toolkit for determining the level of democratic elections. The author introduces the concept of the "Index of democratic elections", which has a three-level structure: the first level – is democratic principles of elections; the second level – is indicators of democratic elections; and the third level – is components of indicators of democratic elections. The author's method of calculating the level of democratic elections is relative in nature and is defined as the ratio between the ideal model of democratic elections and the existing model of a specific election campaign. The author's proposed method of calculating the level of democratic elections involves taking into account both the state of electoral legislation and the features of electoral practice and can be effectively used to measure the level of democratic elections in transitional (transit) democracies.

Keywords: elections, democracy, indexing, Index of democratic elections, democratic principles of elections.