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² A parallel expression, “democracy without adjectives,” appeared in debates in Latin America among observers concerned with the persistence of incomplete and qualified forms of democracy. See, for instance, Krauze, Enrique, Por una democracia sin adjetivos (Mexico City: Joaquin Mortiz/Planeta, 1986)Google Scholar.

³ Schumpeter, , Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York: Harper, 1947)Google Scholar; and Dahl, , Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971)Google Scholar.

⁴ Along with the qualitative categories that are the focus of this discussion, valuable quantitative indicators have been developed for comparing recent cases of democratization. Ultimately, it will be productive to bring together insights about the strategies of conceptual innovation employed in these alternative approaches. However, an essential prior step, which is our present concern, is to learn more about the conceptual innovations introduced by scholars who employ qualitative categories.

⁵ We are thus not primarily concerned with the literature on advanced industrial democracies, although this literature is an important point of reference in the studies we are examining. In a few places, we have included recent studies of countries that are not actually part of the current episode of democratization, but whose relatively new democracies are a point of comparison in the studies under review, for example, Colombia. We also include a few references to other historical cases that have been used in recent scholarship as important points of analytic contrast.

⁶ Sartori (fn. 1), 1039.

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¹⁰ For an analysis that focuses on some of these same strategies with reference to another social science concept, see Collier, David, “Trajectory of a Concept: ‘Corporatism' in the Study of Latin American Politics,” in Smith, Peter H., ed., Latin America in Comparative Perspective: New Approaches to Method and Analysis (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995)Google Scholar. For discussions by linguists and cognitive scientists of the intuitive structure that underlies these strategies, see Cruse, D. A., Lexical Semantics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), chap. 6Google Scholar; Lakoff, George, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), chaps. 2, 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Taylor, John R., Linguistic Categorization: Prototypes in Linguistic Theory, 2d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), chaps. 2–3Google Scholar.

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¹² Ibid., quote at 186; see also pp. 178, 189,190, 193.

¹³ For discussions of procedural definitions, see O'Donnell, Guillermo and Schmitter, Philippe C., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986)Google Scholar, chap. 2; Huntingdon, Samuel P., “The Modest Meaning of Democracy,” in Pastor, Robert A., ed., Democracy in the Americas: Stopping the Pendulum (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1989)Google Scholar; Schumpeter (fn.3); and Dahl (fn. 3). On minimal definitions, see Palma, Giuseppe Di, To Craft Democracies: An Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 28Google Scholar; and Huntington, Samuel P., The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 9Google Scholar. On treating characteristics of the society and economy as a cause or consequence of democracy, see Linz, Juan J., “Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes,” in Greenstein, Fred I. and Polsby, Nelson W., eds., Handbook of Political Science, vol. 3 (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1975), 182Google Scholar; and Karl, Terry Lynn, “Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America,” Comparative Politics 23 (October 1990), 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ O'Donnell and Schmitter (fn. 13), 8 (but see note 33 below); Diamond, Larry, Linz, Juan J., and Lipset, Seymour Martin, “Preface,” in Diamond, , Linz, , and Lipset, , eds., Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1989), xviGoogle Scholar; Di Palma (fn. 13), 16. See also Linz, Juan J., The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown, and Reequilibration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 5Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Sartori (fn. 1), 1040, actually refers to a ladder of “abstraction.” However, because the term abstract is often understood in contrast to concrete, this label can be confusing. We therefore find that “ladder of generality” expresses the intended meaning more clearly.

¹⁶ Sartori (fn. 1), 1041.

¹⁷ We refer to these as classical subtypes because they fit within the “classical” understanding of categorization discussed by such authors as Lakoff (fn. 10), 9 and passim; and Taylor (fn. 10), chap. 2.

¹⁸ In referring to the root definition, we do not imply that it is the “correct” definition of the relevant concept (in this case, of democracy). It is simply the definition that, for a particular author, is the point of departure in forming the subtype. We will occasionally use the expression “root concept” to refer to the concept (again, in the present context, democracy) that is the point of departure for the various conceptual innovations analyzed here.

¹⁹ Linz and Valenzuela (fn. 8); Stepan and Skach (fn. 8); and Sartori, Giovanni, Comparative Constitutional Engineering: An Inquiry into Structures, Incentives, and Outcomes (New York: New York University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

²⁰ Sartori (fn. 1), 1041.

²¹ See, respectively, Wilson, Richard, “Continued Counterinsurgency: Civilian Rule in Guatemala,” in Gills, Barry, Rocamora, Joel, and Wilson, Richard, eds., Low Intensity Democracy: Political Power in the New World Order (London: Pluto Press, 1993)Google Scholar; and Karl, Terry Lynn, “Democracy by Design: The Christian Democratic Party in El Salvador,” in Palma, Giuseppe Di and Whitehead, Laurence, eds., The Central American Impasse (London: Croom Helm, 1986)Google Scholar.

²² The idea of diminished subtypes builds on the discussion of radial concepts in Collier and Mahon (fn. 1), 850–52. See also Lakoff(fn. 10), chap. 6.

²³ Because they are less than complete instances, it might be objected that they are not really “subtypes” of democracy at all. Drawing on a term from cognitive linguistics, one can refer to them as conceptual “blends” that are derived in part from the concept of democracy. However, to avoid referring repeatedly to “subtypes and blends,” it seems simpler in the discussion below to call them subtypes. See Fauconnier, Gilles and Turner, Mark, “Conceptual Projection and Middle Spaces,” Report no. 9401, Department of Cognitive Science (San Diego: University of California, San Diego, 1994)Google Scholar.

²⁴ This subtype is understood to have the meaning explained above in the discussion of Figure 1.

²⁵ Regarding illiberal democracy, see Figure 3. Two further points about diminished subtypes should be underscored. First, if scholars fail to identify the root definition of democracy in relation to which they form subtypes, it is difficult to determine whether a given subtype is classical or diminished. Second, the fact that a subtype refers to what might be understood as a “problematic” feature of democracy does not necessarily mean that it is a diminished subtype. For example, O'Donnell's concept of “delegative democracy,” which refers to cases with weak horizontal accountability among the branches of government, in fact meets his minimum definition of democracy, given that he does not include horizontal accountability in the definition. See O'Donnell (fn. 8), 56. Hence, in his usage, delegative democracy is a classical subtype. For a discussion of subtypes that refer to “problematic” democracies, see a longer version of the present analysis in Collier, David and Levitsky, Steven, “Democracy ‘with Adjectives’: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research,” Working Paper no. 230 (Notre Dame, Ind.: The Kellogg Institute, University of Notre Dame, 1996), 20–26Google Scholar. The above characterization of delegative democracy as a classical subtype should be understood as correcting the assessment of this subtype presented in Collier (fn. 10), 147–48.

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³³ Authors who have employed horizontal accountability in their definitions include Schmitter, Philippe C. and Karl, Terry Lynn, “What Democracy Is … and Is Not,” Journal of Democracy 2 (Summer 1991), 76, 87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ball, Alan R., Modern Politics and Government, 5th ed. (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1994), 45—46Google Scholar. O'Donnell and Schmitter (fn. 13), 8, actually include it in their formal definition, but it appears to play no role in their subsequent analysis.

³⁴ On the problem of unsettling the semantic field, see Sartori (fn. 28), 51–54.

³⁵ Jennifer Whiting, personal communication, suggested this term.

³⁶ See Linz, Juan J., “The Future of an Authoritarian Situation or the Institutionalization of an Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Brazil,” in Stepan, Alfred, ed., Authoritarian Brazil: Origins, Policies, Future (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973)Google Scholar. Malloy uses “democratic moment” to convey a similar meaning. See Malloy (fn. 26), 236.

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³⁸ See again references in note 10.

³⁹ For a reminder of how important vivid labels can be, one need only look at the impressive evolution of game theory, with its codification of different patterns of political interaction designated by such labels as “prisoners’ dilemma,” “chicken,” “stag hunt,” “slippery slope,” and “battle of the sexes.”

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