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2,234 Descriptions of Democracy

An Update to Democracy’s Ontological Pluralism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Jean-Paul Gagnon
Jean-Paul Gagnon*
Affiliation:
University of Canberra
*
E-mail: jean-paul.gagnon@canberra.edu.au
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Abstract

In 2010 Milja Kurki explained that although scholars recognize that democracy is described in a variety of ways, they do not typically engage with its many and diverse descriptions. My aim in this agenda-setting research note is to tackle this quandary by first providing a minimum empirical account of democracy’s descriptions (i.e., a catalogue of 2,234 adjectives that have been used to describe democracy) and secondly by suggesting what democracy studies may gain by compiling this information. I argue that the catalogue of descriptors be applied in four ways: (1) drilling down into the meaning of each description, (2) making taxonomies, (3) rethinking the phenomenology of democracy, and (4) visualizing democracy’s big data. Each of the four applications and their significance is explained in turn. This research note ends by looking back on the catalogue and its four applications.

Keywords

adjectives of democracybig datadefinitions of democracydemocracydemocracy studiesdemocratic theoryphilosophy of democracytypes of democracy

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Type
Research Note
Information
Democratic Theory , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , June 2018 , pp. 92 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Berghahn Books 2018

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