Measure and collapse of participatory democracy in a two-party system

Abstract

Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so (Galileo Galilei). According to this quotation we do not ask why we need to measure democracy, but if it is possible to measure something that is not unequivocally defined. Although, a final agreement on the definition of democracy is unlikely, the idea that it is a form of governance based on collective decision-making seems to be uncontested. On the premise that in a high-quality democracy citizens (agents) not only must have equal participation rights but must want to participate in shaping decisions, we propose, as an effective measure of democracy in a two-party political system, the percentage of the total population that actually voted in a given election for one of two major parties. Thus, we disregard not only nonvoters but also those who vote for smaller parties, whose votes will not have a substantial impact on the election and consequently they will not be in the loop , even theoretically. To describe such a system a sociophysics model based on the S = 1 Ising model (BlumeCapel) is proposed. The measure of democracy, index VD, is analyzed as a function of interparty conflict.