A Study on Determining The Difference That Government Systems and State Forms Make on Democracy Levels of Countries

44546

The purpose of this study is to examine whether different government systems and state forms play a role in determining democracy levels of countries; in other words, to analyze whether a country’s state form and government system make any difference on the current democracy level of the country. Therefore, state forms are examined based on monarchy and republic along with unitary state and federal state categories while government systems are evaluated based on parliamentary system, presidential system, semi-presidential system, and other categories. Hence, aforementioned difference, despite the fact that mathematically federal states have a larger mean value than unitary states, is not found statistically meaningful according to the t-test results that measure the meaningfulness of the difference in all variables that represent democracy level. Monarchies, on the other hand, have a statistically higher level of democracy than republics according to the t-test results. Countries ruled by a parliamentary system among government systems have a statistically meaningful higher level of democracy in terms of functioning of government and political culture variables than countries ruled by presidential, semi-presidential, and other systems do. They also have a statistically meaningful higher level of democracy in terms of political participation variable than countries ruled by so-called presidential and other systems do. As for the countries included in the “other” category, it is determined that they have a lower level of democracy in terms of electoral process and pluralism along with fundamental rights variables than other government systems do.

461

Democracy , Government Systems , State Forms

Ege Academic Review (EAR)

476

Ege Academic Review (EAR)