Leonardo Morlino

Vice Rector (Research) Full professor of Political Science at LUISS "Guido Carli" di Roma

Biography

Leonardo Morlino (born 1947) is full professor of Political Science at LUISS University, Rome. Between 2009 and 2012 he was the first Italian President of the International Political Science Association.[1] He wrote extensively about the changes of political regimes, democratization processes[2][3] and the quality of democracy of different areas of the world.[4]

Since November 2012 he is Vice Rector (Research) at LUISS "Guido Carli" di Roma.

The theory of anchoring

Morlino developed the theory of anchoring[5] to understand how and why there can be democratic consolidation or democratic crisis, the processes of legitimation and of anchoring should be carefully explored. The key proposition is that to achieve consolidation with a limited legitimation strong anchors are needed. The main anchoring mechanisms we can empirically find are: party organization, clientelism, neo-corporatist arrangements, and party control of interests.Other possible anchors include: a strong leader, a successful tv channel, an internet networking skillfully managed. Likewise, there is an internal crisis of democracy when for a number of different reason the existing anchors fade away, i.e. there is a de-anchoring. In case of crisis this phenomenon is usually compounded by delegitimation in terms of dissatisfaction about the implemented policies or of a decisional stalemate.

How to analyze democratic quality

According to Morlino a good democracy is, first of all, a regime widely legitimized and stable, where citizens are fully satisfied because the elected rulers are capable and able to respond to their needs and questions (quality as result). If institutions are still challenged, attention, energy will be absorbed by the needs and objectives of its consolidation or maintenance. In addition, its citizens and communities enjoy freedom and equality beyond the minimum(quality as content). Third, citizens of a good democracy must be able to monitor and evaluate it through elections (electoral accountability) or indirectly (mutual control among the institutions) if and how the two values of freedom and equality are achieved through the full compliance with the current rules, the so-called rule of law, their efficient implementation, effectiveness in decision-making along with the political responsibility for the choices made by elected elites in relation to the questions raised by the civil society (quality as procedure ). Citizens, experts, scholars with different ideal conceptions of democracy can check which of the qualities listed above best suit their ideals and to what extent those qualities are implemented in a certain country at a certain time, using the empirical research conducted by Morlino.[6]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.ipsa.org/history/presidents
  2. ↑ L. Morlino, "Cómo cambian los regímenes políticos" CEC Madrid (1995)
  3. ↑ L.Morlino "Changes for Democracy:Actors, Structures, Processes", Oxford Studies in Democratization (2011)
  4. ↑ Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino, "The Quality of Democracy: An Overview" in Journal of Democracy, Volume 15, Number 4, October 2004
  5. ↑ L.Morlino, "Democracy Between Consolidation and Crisis. Parties,Groups,and Citizens in Southern Europe", Oxford, Oxford university Press (1998)
  6. ↑ L. Morlino, Changes for Democracy (2011), Chapters 7 and 8