Encyclopedia of SociologyVol._1

DEMOCRACY

account defends democracy by admitting its weakness: voting in elections is not a terribly effective system for ensuring that the will of the people will be carried out. Instead, Dahl focuses attention on whether non-electoral forms of influence can yield democratic decision making in keeping with the wishes and interests of the public. Interest groups thus become not the bane, but the hope of democracy. Through lobbying in all its forms, interest groups are able to exert power and influence over decision making beyond elections; if they do this, then the system, with all its flaws, can be considered democratic (Dahl 1961).

A problem with the pluralist view is that not all groups in society may be able effectively to form interest groups to pursue their goals. Olson, in an early effort in what is now known as rational choice theory, argued that individuals must be assumed to be rational, and that rational individuals will not contribute to the formation of interest groups when they will obtain the benefits achieved by the interest group anyway. This is the free rider or collective action problem: if an interest group lobbies for clean air, and a person cannot be denied clean air because he or she does not belong to the interest group, why should that person contribute to the group? Only those interest groups with a particularly small constituency or those interest groups who are able to use ‘‘special’’ incentives— those available only to members of the group—to attract contributors will be able to form to lobby to advance their interests. Groups representing weak and powerless individuals may be unable to supply such special incentives (Olson 1971).

Olson’s pessimism about the chances for the disadvantaged to gain a voice in decision making has been the focus of much attention. Oliver and Marwell suggest that social movements are more likely to be formed as interest groups grow in size

(Oliver and Marwell 1988). Knoke argues that the use of selective incentives may attract apathetic members, whereas a focus on the goal of lobbying may attract highly active members, thereby creating more effective organizations (Knoke 1988). Clemens points out that as interest groups come into existence, they are themselves models or templates for others to imitate. Those templates will

then increase the likelihood of the formation of more interest groups (Clemens 1997). These criticisms of Olson’s analysis of the collective action problem may actually serve to strengthen the pluralist account of democracy.

Yet many sociologists remain deeply critical of the pluralist account. Domhoff argues that pluralism is flawed not because the collective action problem retards the capacity of the disadvantaged to organize. Rather, pluralism is flawed because in the United States, and in other industrialized democracies, there is a governing class (Domhoff 1998). This governing class is composed of elites from business, the social upper class, and those in charge of organizations, both within and outside government, that are powerfully involved in the formation of public policy. While Domhoff admits that there is some conflict within these groups, he views them as cohesive in their opposition to the interests of the poor and the working class. Through their control of important organizations, through the strength of their social ties, and through the use of agenda-setting, the governing class achieves enormous power. And, Domhoff argues, the governing class is able to use that power consistently to defeat the interests of the majority.

Other critics of the pluralist account have drawn attention to the relationship between social class and voting. For some years, it appeared that class-based voting in the United States appeared to be declining (Clark, Lipset, and Rempel 1993;

Manza, Hout, and Brooks 1995). Yet some scholars believe that class remained a significant factor in voting behavior (Burnham 1981). Piven and

Cloward argued that the pluralist account failed because there was a systematic pattern to who voted and who did not. Because the poor and the working classes disproportionately failed to vote in elections, they were inadequately represented in the competition between interests; hence the poor were excluded from the pluralist democracy (Piven and Cloward 1988). It has been shown that class remains a powerful determinant of how people vote, even if the working class no longer votes for the Democratic party in the United States with as great a frequency as it did in the years immediately after WWII (Hout, Brooks, and Manza 1995).

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Researchers in the 1970s and 1980s criticized pluralism for adopting a definition of democracy that was too satisfied with the status quo of only limited participation in decision making. These participatory democratic theories emphasized that as members participate in decision making, they learn more about the criteria that need to be used in effective decision making and become better at making decisions. But members also, it was argued, become better at evaluating the choice of candidates where representatives must be elected. Accordingly, empirical researchers began to investigate the causes and consequences of increased participation in decision making (Finley 1973; Pateman 1970).

In keeping with this view, researchers increasingly moved to consider cases of participation throughout society (Alford and Friedland 1975). Participation in decision making in unions, community organizations, municipalities, and protest groups has been analyzed and touted (Gans 1989;

Cole 1975). In organization theory, research on different forms of worker participation in organizational decision making has gained increasing prominence. Total quality management, participatory management, and worker control all have been studied closely, not just for improvement in productivity and quality, but also for democracy.

Much of this research emphasizes how democracy is consistent with both effectiveness and the improvement of the condition of workers (Jarley,

Fiorito, and Delaney 1997). Some have even come to see the spread of democratic management as inevitable, although this is almost certainly exaggerated (Collins 1997). Yet many have worked to show that democratic systems of management are more broadly possible than has been thought, although the conditions under which such systems of decision making can be created and maintained remain under debate (Burawoy 1982; Kanter 1983).

Renewed definitions of democracy beg a central question in democratic research: Where do democracies come from? The question has been most closely studied for nation-states. Lipset identifies a set of central conditions that are associated with the rise of democracy in nation-states. The presence of a market economy appears to be a

necessary, although not a sufficient, condition for democracy. A minimum level of economic development is associated with democracy, although a key debate is the extent to which development leads to democracy (Bollen and Jackman 1995; Muller 1995). Also associated with democracy is a political culture in which the tolerance for the rights of others is recognized. Finally, countries with Protestant religious traditions have been more likely to be democratic, though the significance of that effect may be fading in the recent transition to democracy (Lipset 1994).

One of the most significant contributions to the account of the origins of democracy is that by Moore (Moore 1966). His analysis, standing in contrast to a Marxist emphasis on the role of the working class as a force in history, identified the relationship between peasant and lord prior to capitalism as the critical factor in determining whether a society became democratic or autocratic. In countries such as China, France, Japan, or Germany, repressive control over peasants by a dominant class led either to revolution or to continued autocracy. In China, revolution led to Communist autocracy; in France, because of the existence of a commercial class, revolution led, through

fits and starts, to democracy. In Japan and Germany, the failure or absence of revolution led to continued dominance of repressive classes, leading to the rise of fascist regimes. Moore argued that in a country such as England, however, the greater status of labor, coupled with the nobility’s increasing dependence on market-based agriculture, led to an eventual democratic solution to social conflict.

Moore’s work has provoked considerable criticism and extension (Ross et al. 1998). Downing has shown conclusively that the nature of military conflicts affects the success of democracy in a country. How a nation fights its wars, and how often it must fight, is critically determinative of the need for repression in the mobilization of men and weapons to fight. England’s peculiar move toward democracy is thus critically dependent on its position as an island nation, free from the necessity to fight long-term, massive land wars on the continent of Europe, and the necessity to

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maintain a state and military administrative structure capable of that task (Downing 1992). Friedman has shown that former British colonies tend to be democratic, whereas countries ruled by Leninist parties tend to remain autocratic (Friedman 1998).

Students of social movements have tended to argue that social movements are significant sources of democracy (Giugni, McAdam, and Tilly 1998). There is evidence that social movements can push the transition to democracy faster (Hipsher 1998; Sandoval 1998). Certainly this is consistent with Tilly’s theoretical model of democratization, in which he argues that social conflict, as embodied in social movements, and where mediated by third parties, can lead to the creation of rights essential for democracy (Tilly 1998). But surely the effects of social movements on democracy are contingent on many factors, and sociologists must be careful not to assume that the outcome of social protest will be democratization (Melucci and Lyyra 1998). Clearly this has not always been the case.

The sources of democracy in organizations is an understudied area. Two findings are worth noting. Knoke has argued that in the present-day United States, a minimum level of democratic procedure is just a part of the institutional building blocks from which organizations are constructed; in short, organizations such as unions may have democratic procedures simply because everybody expects them to have those procedures (Knoke 1990). And, returning to the tension between democracy and effectiveness identified by Michels,

Jarley has found that the causes of democratic procedures in unions are independent of those which drive bureaucratization (Jarley, Fiorito, and

Delaney 1997). Yet much more systematic work needs to be done in this area.

The other side of the coin in the study of democracy is the question of the relationship between democracy and other core subjects of sociological interest. The relationship between democracy and equality is a central issue and has been a focus of research since de Tocqueville (Tocqueville 1969). In recent years, research has centered around this specific question: Does democracy promote or retard income inequality in nation-states? There is

some evidence that democracy does not increase inequality, at least directly, and it might lead to increased equality (Bollen and Jackman 1985; Muller 1988).

Another question is whether democracies can be effective. The central issue, echoing Michels, is whether or not organizations, such as unions or parties or, for that matter, businesses, can be successful in competitive environments against organizations that are autocratically run. The evidence is conflicting. Some argue that democracy and effectiveness are in conflict in the context of unions (Lipset, Trow, and Coleman 1959; Piven and Cloward 1977). Others argue that democracy leads to effectiveness in achieving goals (StepanNorris and Zeitlin 1994). As yet, there seems to be no definitive answer, and the issue certainly merits more research.

Finally, the subject of democracy has been intimately tied in the 1990s to two related subjects.

The first is the subject of globalization. As the world has become more closely connected, as communications technologies radically change again, and as the world economy has grown larger, some have raised questions about the implications of this trend for democracy. Held, for example, has argued that decisions that affect citizens are increasingly being made at a level beyond that of the nation-state; in supra-national organizations and in the international economy. As a consequence of this globalization, the extent of democratic control over decisions is seen to have weakened (Held 1995). Others have criticized this argument, and the subject is still very much subject to research and debate (Hirst and Thompson 1996).

The second related subject is civil society. A focus of scholarly attention in part because of the demands for it from those who have emerged from socialist rule, civil society is commonly conceived as space for associational activity between the state and the individual (Gellner 1994). Many now see organizations and associations, independent of the state, as crucial to democracy, constituting a critical element of democratic society (Streeck and Schmitter 1985). Certainly, they are not the same: as Hall puts it, ‘‘Democracy can be

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decidedly uncivil’’ (Hall 1995). But democracy depends on civil society (Somers 1993). This view echoes Tocqueville’s assertion that the knowledge of how to combine is fundamental to democracy

(Tocqueville 1969). Already attracting significant attention, much room remains to answer questions about the relationship between civil society and democracy.

In conclusion, it is well to remember that there are many forms of democracy: those with weaker or stronger civil liberties; those with weaker or stronger civil societies; those with weaker or stronger tolerance for diversity. Nor can it be assumed that these different forms are internally consistent: the rights of the community to choose what it wishes to be, and the rights of the individual to live as he or she wishes, are not easily reconciled.

It is also well to remember that democracy is not inevitable (Berger 1992). Neither, we should also recall, is democracy a simple outcome that, once achieved, is a permanent condition (Friedman 1998). Democracy can be strengthened; democracy can be weakened. And it can, as it has in the past, disappear. While democracy is today in the ascendant, the lessons of the French Revolution and of Weimar Germany should not be forgotten; although in both instances democracy was regained, it was not regained quickly or without cost. And in

Germany, as in Japan, democracy was not regained from within, but imposed from without. History should teach us that we still have much to learn about democracy.

(SEE ALSO: Capitalism, Development, Inequality, Civil Society, Individualism in Less Developed Countries, Political Sociology, Rational Choice Theory.)

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Clemens, Elisabeth S. 1997 The People’s Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890–1925. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Melucci, Alberto, and Timo Lyyra 1998 ‘‘Collective Action, Change, and Democracy.’’ In Marco G. Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly, eds., From Contention to Democracy 203–228. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.

Michels, Robert 1949 Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Free Press.

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Muller, Edward N. 1988 ‘‘Democracy, Economic Development, and Income Inequality.’’ American Sociological Review 53:50–68.

——— 1995 ‘‘Economic Determinants of Democracy.’’

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Olson, Mancur 1971 The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Pateman, Carole 1970 Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard Cloward 1977 Poor People’s Movements. New York: Pantheon.

——— 1988 Why Americans Don’t Vote. New York: Pantheon.

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Sandoval, Salvador A. M. 1998 ‘‘Social Movements and Democratization: The Case of Brazil and the Latin Countries.’’ In Marco G. Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly, eds., From Contention to Democracy

169–202. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.

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ANDREW L. CREIGHTON

DEMOGRAPHIC METHODS

Demographic methods are used to provide researchers and policymakers with useful information about the size and structure of human populations and the processes that govern population changes. A population, of course, may range in size from a small number of individuals surveyed locally to a large national population enumerated in periodic censuses to even larger aggregated entities.

We use demographic methods not only in purely demographic applications, but also in a variety of other fields, among them sociology, economics, anthropology, public health, and business. Demographers, like all researchers, must pay careful attention to the quality of data that enter into their analyses. Some circumstances under which we use these methods are more trying than others. In cases in which the data are viewed to be accurate and complete, the methods we use to analyze them are more straightforward than those that are applied to data of imperfect quality.

DESCRIPTION OF DATA

First we must develop ways to describe our data in a fashion that allows the most important facts to leap out at us. As one example, let us examine a population’s age structure or distribution. Simple descriptive statistics are doubtless helpful in summarizing aspects of population age structure, but demographers often use age ‘‘pyramids’’ to convey to an audience the youthfulness of a population, for example, or even to convey a rough sense of a nation’s history.

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We might note, for example, that 20 percent of Norway’s population in 1997 was under the age of fifteen. In contrast, 39 percent of Mexico’s population seven years earlier fell into this category. But it is perhaps more dramatic to create a visual display of these figures in the form of age pyramids.

An age pyramid is typically constructed as a bar graph, with horizontal bars—one representing each sex—emanating in both directions from a central vertical age axis. Age increases as one proceeds up the axis and the unit of the horizontal axis is either the proportion of the total population in each age group or the population size itself.

We see in panel A of figure 1 that Mexico’s population is described by a very broad-based pyramid—actually, in two-dimensional space, a triangle, but by convention we refer to it as a pyramid—which reveals a remarkably large proportion of the population not yet having reached adulthood. The median age of this population is about twenty years. Such a distributional shape is common particularly among high fertility populations. In stark contrast we have the pyramid shown in panel B, representing the population of Norway. Rather than triangular, its age distribution is somewhat more rectangular in shape, which is typically seen among countries that have experienced an extended period of low fertility rates. It is easy to see that Norway’s median age (about thirtysix years) is considerably higher than that of Mexico.

As mentioned above, not only can we examine the age structure of populations through the use of pyramids, but we can also gain much insight into a nation’s history insofar as that history has either directly or indirectly influenced the size of successive birth cohorts. Note, for example, the age pyramid reflecting the population age structure of France on 1 January 1962 (figure 2).

In this figure, several notable events in France’s history are apparent. We see (1) the military losses experienced in World War I by male birth cohorts of the mid to late 1890s, (2) the remarkable birth dearth brought about by that war (the cohort aged in their mid-forties or so in 1962), followed by (3) the return of prewar childbearing activity once the

war ended (the cohort who in 1962 were in their early forties), and a similar pattern revolving around World War II, during which (4) a substantial decline in births took place (the cohort around age twenty in 1962), succeeded by (5) a dramatic baby boom in the years immediately following (those around age fifteen in 1962).

COMPARISON OF CRUDE RATES

Much of the work in which social scientists are engaged is comparative in nature. For example, we might seek to contrast the mortality levels of the populations of two countries. Surely, if the two countries in question have accurate vital registration and census data, this task would appear to be trivial. For each country, we would simply divide the total number of deaths (D) in a given year by the total population (P) at the midpoint of that year. Thus we would define the crude death rate

(CDR) for country A as:

							ω-n		[nMxA . nPxA]
	D		A	[t,t+1]			∑
CDRA =					=	x=0,n					(1)
	P	A		[t+.5]				ω-n
									∑	nPxA

x=0,n

where t denotes the beginning of the calendar year, ω is the oldest age attained in the population, nMxA is the death rate of individuals aged x to x + n, and nPxA is the number of individuals in that same age group. nMxA and nPxA are centered on the midpoint of the calendar year. The rightmost segment of this equation reminds us that the crude death rate is but the sum of the age-specific death rates weighted by the proportion of the population at each age.

Unfortunately, comparisons of crude death rates across populations can lead to misleading conclusions. This problem is in fact general to any sort of comparison based on crude rates that do not account for the confounding effects of factors that differentiate the two populations.

Let us examine the death rates of two very different countries, Mexico and Norway. The crude death rate (for both sexes combined) in Mexico in 1990, 5.2 per 1000, was approximately half that for

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											Age Pyramid of Mexico																																																Age Pyramid of Norway
																					1990																																																		1997
90+
85-89
80-84									Males																												Females																					Males																									Females
75-79
70-74
65-69
60-64
55-59
50-54
45-49
40-44
35-39
30-34
25-29
20-24
15-19
10-14
5-9
0-4
14				12			10		8		6				4			2			0											2				4			6				8		10		12			14			12		10		8		6							4		2			0					2			4				6						8		10		12		14
																		Percentage																																																		Percentage
																				Panel A																																																		Panel B

Figure 1

NOTE: Age pyramids for Mexico and Norway

Norway, 10.1, seven years later, in 1997. Knowing nothing else about these two countries, we might infer that the health of the Mexican population was considerably superior to that of the Norwegian population. However, once we standardize the crude death rates of the two countries on a common population age structure, we find just the reverse is true.

To accomplish this standardization, instead of applying the above equation to our data, we use the following:

	ω-n	[nMxA . nPxs]
	∑
ASCDRA =	x=0,n		(2)
		ω-n
		∑ nPxs
		x=0,n

where ASCDRA is the age-standardized crude death rate of country A, and nPxS is the number of individuals in the standardized population of that same age group. Any age distribution may be chosen as the standard, however, it is common simply to use the average of the two proportionate

age distributions (i.e., each normalized to one in order to account for unequal population sizes).

Table 1 gives the death rates and number of persons for each country by five-year age groups (zero through four, five through nine, and so on through eighty and above). The first fact we glean from the table is that the mortality rates of the Norwegian population are substantially lower than those of their Mexican counterparts at virtually all ages. We see that nearly 40 percent of the Mexican population is concentrated in the three age groups having the lowest death rates (ages five through nineteen). Only half that proportion of the Norwegian population is found in the same age range. In contrast, only 6 percent of the Mexican population is above sixty years of age, an age range with which its highest level of mortality is associated. At the same time, about 20 percent of the Norwegian population is sixty or older. Compared with the

Mexican crude death rate, then, the Norwegian rate is disproportionately weighted toward the relatively high age-specific death rates that exist in the older ages.

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Age Pyramid of France

1 January 1962

95

85

75

65

55

45

35

25

15

5

400

300

200

100

0

100

200

300

400

Population (in 1,000s)

Figure 2

NOTE: Age pyramid France

Applying the standardization method described by the above equation to the average of Norway’s and Mexico’s proportionate age distributions, we find that the resulting crude death rates are consistent with what we would infer from the two series of age-specific mortality rates. Mexico’s age-stand- ardized crude death rate, 8.7 per 1000 population, is one-third greater than that of Norway, 6.6 per 1000.

LIFE TABLES

The life table is a methodological device used by demographers and others to examine the life— either literal or figurative—of a particular dura- tion-dependent phenomenon. The original application of the life table was to the mortality patterns of human populations. Today, the life table technique is applied to such diverse areas as contraceptive efficacy, marital formation and dissolution, and organizational failure. Thus it is a remarkably

general tool for examining the time-dependent survivorship in a given state.

To illustrate the use of the life table method, suppose we use as an example the mortality experience of the United States population in 1996. We might wish to derive the average number of years that an individual would live, subject to the series of age-specific death rates attributed to that population. To find the answer, we could construct a complete life table, as in table 2. It is complete in the sense that it is highly age-detailed, focusing on single years of age. This is in contrast to the abridged life table, which is usually constructed using five-year age groups. The abridged life table shown in table 3 refers also to the total population of the United States in 1996.

Most life tables that we see are called period or current life tables. They refer to a particular snapshot in time. Although they describe the mortality experience of an actual population, they do not

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Standardization using Death Rates and Population Distributions from Mexico (1990) and Norway (1997)

		Mexico					Norway
Age Group	Population		Death		STANDARD	Population		Death
	in 1000s			Rate	DISTRIBUTION	in 1000s			Rate
	(% distribution)		(per 1000)		(%)	(% distribution)		(per 1000)
0-4	10,257		8.40		9.75	303		1.06
	(12.62)					(6.88)
5-9	10,627		0.61		9.96	301		0.19
	(13.08)					(6.83)
10-14	10,452		0.52		9.43	264		0.14
	(12.86)					(6.00)
15-19	9,723		0.99		9.00	265		0.48
	(11.97)					(6.02)
20-24	7,877		1.50		8.24	299		0.54
	(9.69)					(6.78)
25-29	6,444		1.88		7.86	343		0.68
	(7.93)					(7.78)
30-34	5,420		2.21		7.17	338		0.77
	(6.67)					(7.68)
35-39	4,607		2.88		6.46	319		0.94
	(5.67)					(7.25)
40-44	3,519		3.80		5.72	313		1.55
	(4.33)					(7.11)
45-49	2,990		5.30		5.28	303		2.45
	(3.68)					(6.89)
50-54	2,408		7.30		4.73	286		3.88
	(2.96)					(6.50)
55-59	1,906		11.32		3.48	203		6.19
	(2.35)					(4.61)
60-64	1,621		15.17		2.97	174		10.31
	(2.00)					(3.94)
65-69	1,191		23.57		2.74	177		16.55
	(1.47)					(4.02)
70-74	832		33.27		2.53	177		28.66
	(1.02)					(4.03)
75-79	594		54.53		2.13	156		57.11
	(0.73)					(3.53)
80+	780		108.52		2.55	182		122.48
	(0.96)					(4.14)

Table 1

SOURCE: http://www.ssb.no/www-open/english/yearbook/ and http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbprint.html

613