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The Quality of Democracy: Theory and Applications. Edited by Guillermo O'Donnell, Jorge Vargas Cullell, and Osvaldo M. lazzetta. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 274. Tables. Notes. Index. $55.00 cloth; $25.00 paper.
We live in a paradoxical era. There are more democratic regimes in the world than ever before, but this is also a time of deep disillusionment with democracy. The Quality of Democracy contributes to our understanding of this reality in three ways. First, it introduces the conceptual distinction between high and low quality democracy. Second, the book reports in detail on a citizen's audit in Costa Rica, a country with the reputation for having one of the highest quality democracies in Latin America. Finally, twelve academic specialists comment on both the theoretical assumptions underlying the concept of democratic quality and the citizen audit.
In the book's first chapter, Guillermo O'Donnell links democracy with the United Nations Development Program's idea of human development, Amartya Sen's concept of capabilities, and the vast literature on human rights. O'Donnell argues against a minimalist definition of democracy as a specific regime type and promotes the view that some dimensions of democracy...