The idea of the democratic audit, or democracy assessment as it is also known, is a very simple one. A democratic audit is a comprehensive and systematic assessment of a country's political life in order to answer the question: how democratic is it and how well are human rights protected?
The point is to enable citizens in any country to assess the quality of their democracy and to identify what reforms are needed to democratise their country further. A democratic audit can be a valuable starting point for empowering oppressed peoples or marginalised communities.
Our assessment methodology is based on the two basic principles of representative democracy - popular control and political equality: that is, how far do the people exercise control over political decision-makers and the processes of decision-making? And how far is there political equality in the exercise of that control?
From these two principles we derive the democratic framework of audit, or "search" questions, which enable people thoroughly and systematically to examine the quality of their democracy, human rights and public services.
Democratic Audit first developed the framework for use in the UK. But we re-designed and expanded it for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), Stockholm, to create a universal framework to assess the condition of democracy in any country in the world. An international panel of experts agreed the framework after exhaustive discussion. With our assistance, IDEA piloted the framework in eight countries around the world. We used the full framework for the 2002 Audit of the UK, Democracy under Blair.
The framework is flexible. An assessment team can carry out a full assessment relatively cheaply - for less than US$50,000 -- or more; and can combine it with popular and "elite" opinion surveys. The "search" questions can be adapted to local conditions.
Assessment is flexible. It can
- focus on one or more key aspects of democracy in any country;
- focus on local or regional government as well as national;
- be equally valid either in a developed or developing nation.
For the UK Department for International Development (DFID), we adapted the framework for use in development work aimed at encouraging government pro-poor policies and empowering marginalised communities and enabling them to adopt self-help initiatives.
International IDEA has published a full guide to the assessment framework, The International IDEA Handbook on Democracy Assessment (David Beetham et al, IDEA/Kluwer Law International, 2002). The Handbook describes the whole process of taking on a democratic audit. There is also a comparative guide to the eight pilot democracy assessments sponsored by IDEA, The State of Democracy: Democracy Assessments in Eight Nations Around the World (David Beetham et al, IDEA/Kluwer Law International, 2002).
For more about International IDEA, www.idea.int
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The Democracy Assessment Framework - Access and Use
The assessment framework, the actual tool-kit for auditing or teaching purposes, combines a set of "search questions", factual guidance, sources and international standards.
More:
We are currently updating the information given in the four framework blocks. The revised blocks will be entered on this website over time in early 2004.
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