Abstract
The aim of this study was to assess the quality of democracy in Brazil, India, and South Africa with regard to freedom and equality. This was done using quality of democracy methodology. Graham’s Quality of Democracy Framework was employed, which identifies four indicators in respect of the democratic dimension: freedom and equality, namely, civil rights, the existence of discrimination, political rights and socio-economic rights and resources. Each of these indicators were assessed for each country accordingly. It was found that all three countries had a high quality of democracy in regard to political rights, however, there were significant problems with each of the other indicators. For example, India has very high levels of discrimination across the board. Brazil’s biggest struggle is civil rights, particularly regarding police brutality. And South Africa has the highest levels of inequality in the world, resulting in an unequal distribution of socio-economic resources.