Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy 19 Democratic theorizing in the 21st century must reflect ethical objectives that Greek thinkers in the fifth century B.C. already integrated in their political thought. The 'polity' of Aristotle is after all a form of governance that already oriented itself to the welfare of the governed. More than two thousand years later, regimes that systematically subvert this pragmatic as well as ethical objective must yield their pretensions to being a democracy. B. Measuring Democracy The measurement of democracy, like the provocative challenge of conceptualization, has drawn much interest among academics and government policy experts. Numerous metric probes have focused on the root concept democracy, the constituent ideas perceived to be integral to it, their component variables and, at ground level, their various indicators. These measurement efforts reflect intrinsically academic as well as more pragmatic policy interests that require the monitoring of democracy and democratization worldwide. For those who have occupied themselves with this task, there is ample recognition that the legitimacy of their measuring instruments and the utility of the metrics they generate critically depend on the quality of conceptualization brought to bear on democracy, its constituent elements or attributes, their component variables and, not least, the operational indicators actually employed (Adcock and Collier 2001; Bailey 1973; Bogaards 2010 and 2007; Bohlen 1990; Collier and Adcock 1999; Knutsen 2010; Munck 2009; Munck and Verkuilen 2002; Wetzel 2002; Van Hanen 2000). Among these scholars, their specific conception of democracy, its components and the resulting subtypes greatly determine the qualitative or quantitative measures that could properly apply. Definitions of key terms used in exploring the nature of democracy and the processes of democratization have implications for how their empirical manifestations are perceived, analyzed and measured. The dichotomy or gradation that scholars debate about and choose to attribute to the general concept democracy and its variables determine what measures may be permitted, perhaps even required, and what on the other hand may be proscribed (Collier and Adcock 1999: 537540; Bohlen 1990:13). Academic reviews of the various attempts at measuring democracy are uniformly critical in pointing out other conceptual flaws that impact on its proper measurement. They occur when a concept is loaded with what is not essential to it, as happens in the case of stability often being linked to political