I think this is extremely significant. As I said elsewhere in replies, the original study (or the summary brief about it linked here) gives zero insight into th

I think this is extremely significant. As I said elsewhere in replies, the original study (or the summary brief about it linked here) gives zero insight into the design of measures they use to quantify "democracy", and leaves all of us commentators free to read different shades of meaning in the material you reference, let alone our often misinformed personal opinions. My point wasn't to revel in the pedantry of precise definitions, but "reductio ad absurdum" of the idea that anyone reading the link could take seriously the pedantic claim that democracy has been seeing "decline" without knowing what definition was under the authors' assumption. This is why social science often gets a bad rap.