Democracy indices

Democracy indices are assessments of the political systems of countries.[1] They are published by intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations according to their own definitions.[2]

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Analysis of democracies focuses attention on the decorative nature of democratic institutions (elections do not lead to a change of power, different media broadcast government point of view and the opposition in parliament votes the same way as the ruling party, among others).[3][4][5]

Approaches classifying countries into democracies and non-democracies differ in whether all countries that are not democracies are considered autocracies or authoritarian regimes, or whether there are some countries that do not clearly belong in either group.[6] Scholars generally refer to three main types of political systems: democracies, totalitarian regimes and, sitting between these two, authoritarian regimes with a variety of hybrid regimes.[7][8]

Prominent democracy indices

Operating
  • V-Dem Democracy indices by V-Dem Institute distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and quantifies these principles.[9] The V-Dem Democracy indices include the Citizen-initiated component of direct popular vote index, which indicates the strength of direct democracy and the presidentialism index, which indicates higher concentration of political power in the hands of one individual.
  • Democracy Index, by the UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit, is an assessment of countries' democracy. Countries are rated as full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, or authoritarian regimes. The index is based on five different categories measuring pluralism, civil liberties, and political culture.[10]
  • Bertelsmann Transformation Index by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, evaluations by country, regional, and general experts, some evaluations by representative surveys of regular citizens. Spectrum: then averaging of scores for: hard-line autocracy, moderate autocracy, very defective democracy, defective democracy, consolidating democracy.[11]
  • International IDEAs "Global State of Democracy Report" assesses democratic performance using different types of sources: expert surveys, standards-based coding by research groups and analysts, observational data and composite measures.[12]

Indices measuring aspects of democracy

Historical
  • Democracy-Dictatorship Index is a binary measure of democracy and dictatorship.[18]
  • Democracy Ranking is a democracy ranking by the Association for Development and Advancement of the Democracy Award.[19]
  • Polity data series contains annual information on regime authority characteristics and covers the years 1800–2018 based on competitiveness, openness, and level of participation, sponsored by the Political Instability Task Force (PITF).[20]
  • Boix-Miller-Rosato dichotomous coding of democracy, easy-to-observe characteristics, few evaluations by own researchers based on academic literature. As a classification: non-democracy to democracy.[21]
  • Lexical Index of Electoral Democracy (LIED) by Skaaning et al democracy's characteristics assessed with easy-to-observe characteristics, few evaluations by own researchers based on academic research. Then evaluating whether necessary characteristics are present or not.[22]

Maps of indices
Further information: Democratic backsliding by country

Difficulties in measuring democracy

Because democracy is an overarching concept that includes the functioning of diverse institutions which are not easy to measure, strong limitations exist in quantifying and econometrically measuring the potential effects of the democracy or its relationship with other phenomena—whether inequality, poverty, education etc.[25] Given the constraints in acquiring reliable data with within-country variations on aspects of democracy, academics have largely studied cross-country variations. Yet variations between democratic institutions are very large across countries which constrain meaningful comparisons using statistical approaches. Since democracy is typically measured aggregately as a macro variable using a single observation for each country and each year, studying democracy faces a range of econometric constraints and is limited to basic correlations. Cross-country comparison of a composite, comprehensive, and qualitative concept like democracy may thus not always be, for many purposes, methodologically rigorous or useful.[25]

Dieter Fuchs and Edeltraud Roller suggest that, in order to truly measure the quality of democracy, objective measurements need to be complemented by "subjective measurements based on the perspective of citizens".[26] Similarly, Quinton Mayne and Brigitte Geißel also defend that the quality of democracy does not depend exclusively on the performance of institutions, but also on the citizens' own dispositions and commitment.[27]

Another way of conceiving of the difficulties in measuring democracy is through the debate between minimalist versus maximalist definitions of democracy. As defended by Adam Przeworski, a minimalist conception of democracy defines democracy by primarily considering the structure of electoral procedures; such procedures, minimalists argue, are the essence of democracy.[28] A minimalist’s focus on the structure may help to avoid the erroneous incorporation of noninherent outcomes, such as economic or administrative efficiency, into measures of democracy.[29]

Some measures of democracy, notably Freedom House and Polity IV, deploy a maximalist understanding of democracy by analyzing indicators that go beyond electoral procedure.[30] These measures attempt to gauge contestation and inclusion; two features Robert Dahl argued are essential in democracies that successfully promote accountable governments.[31][32] The democratic rating given by these mainstream measures can vary greatly depending on the indicators and evidence they deploy.[33] The definition of democracy utilized by these measures is important because of the discouraging and alienating power such ratings can have, particularly when determined by indicators which are biased toward Western democracies.[34]

Some aspects of democracy, such as responsiveness[35] or accountability, are generally not included in democracy indices due to difficulty measuring these aspects. Other aspects, such as judicial independence, are included in some democracy indices but not in others.

See also

References
  1. Geissel, Brigitte; Kneuer, Marianne; Lauth, Hans-Joachim (2016). "Measuring the quality of democracy: Introduction". International Political Science Review. Sage Publications. 37 (5): 571–579. doi:10.1177/0192512116669141. ISSN 0192-5121. JSTOR 26556872. S2CID 151808737. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  2. Greenwood, Shannon (2022-12-06). "Appendix A: Classifying democracies". Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project. Retrieved 2022-12-27.
  3. "The 'Varieties of Democracy' data: how do researchers measure democracy?". Our World in Data. 2022-11-30. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  4. "Breaking Down Democracy". Freedom House. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  5. Christiano, Tom; Bajaj, Sameer (2006-07-27). "Democracy". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  6. "Democracy data: how do researchers measure democracy?". Our World in Data. Jun 17, 2022. Retrieved Apr 17, 2023.
  7. Dobratz, B.A. (2015). Power, Politics, and Society: An Introduction to Political Sociology. Taylor & Francis. p. 47. ISBN 978-1-317-34529-9. Retrieved Apr 30, 2023.
  8. Michie, J. (2014). Reader's Guide to the Social Sciences. Taylor & Francis. pp. 95–97. ISBN 978-1-135-93226-8. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  9. "Democracy Report 2022: Autocratization Changing Nature?" (PDF), V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg
  10. "Democracy Index 2021: the China challenge". Economist Intelligence Unit.
  11. "Governance Report". BTI 2022. Retrieved Apr 17, 2023.
  12. "International IDEA". International IDEA. Dec 23, 2022. Retrieved Jan 2, 2023.
  13. William Ide (11 January 2000). "Freedom House Report: Asia Sees Some Significant Progress". Voice of America. Archived from the original on 4 December 2013. Retrieved October 13, 2012.
  14. "Freedom in the World". Freedom House. 2021-02-01. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  15. Laakso, Markku; Taagepera, Rein (1979). ""Effective" Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe". Comparative Political Studies. 12 (1): 3–27. doi:10.1177/001041407901200101. ISSN 0010-4140. S2CID 143250203.
  16. "The Gallagher Index – iscanadafair.ca". iscanadafair.ca. Retrieved Apr 3, 2023.
  17. "Failed States FAQ". the Fund for Peace. Retrieved 2007-08-25.
  18. "Democracy-Dictatorship_Index". Kaggle. Jul 17, 2020. Retrieved Apr 3, 2023.
  19. "Home". Democracy Ranking (in German). Feb 12, 2017. Retrieved Apr 3, 2023.
  20. "Polity IV Project". Table footnote. Archived from the original on 4 May 2020. Retrieved 11 Jan 2020.
  21. "Boix-Miller-Rosato dichotomous coding of democracy, 1800-2020, version 4.0 - bmr". xmarquez.github.io. Retrieved Apr 17, 2023.
  22. Skaaning, Svend-Erik; Gerring, John; Bartusevičius, Henrikas (Apr 26, 2015). "A Lexical Index of Electoral Democracy" (PDF). Comparative Political Studies. SAGE Publications. 48 (12): 1491–1525. doi:10.1177/0010414015581050. ISSN 0010-4140. S2CID 16062427.
  23. "Global Dashboard". BTI 2022. Retrieved Apr 17, 2023.
  24. Cheibub, José Antonio; Gandhi, Jennifer; Vreeland, James Raymond (April 2010). "Democracy and dictatorship revisited". Public Choice. 143 (1–2): 67–101. doi:10.1007/s11127-009-9491-2. JSTOR 40661005. S2CID 45234838.
  25. Alexander Krauss, 2016. scientific limits of understanding the %28potential%29 relationship between complex social phenomena -- the case of democracy and inequality.pdf The scientific limits of understanding the (potential) relationship between complex social phenomena: the case of democracy and inequality. Vol. 23(1). Journal of Economic Methodology.
  26. Fuchs, Dieter; Roller, Edeltraud (2018). "Conceptualizing and Measuring the Quality of Democracy: The Citizens' Perspective". Politics and Governance. 6 (1): 22. doi:10.17645/pag.v6i1.1188.
  27. Mayne, Quinton; Geißel, Brigitte (2018). "Don't Good Democracies Need "Good" Citizens? Citizen Dispositions and the Study of Democratic Quality". Politics and Governance. 6 (1): 33. doi:10.17645/pag.v6i1.1216.
  28. Dahl, Robert A., Ian Shapiro, José Antônio Cheibub, and Adam Przeworski. “Minimalist Conception of Democracy: A Defense.” Essay. In The Democracy Sourcebook, 12–17. Cambridge, MA, MA: MIT Press, 2003.
  29. Schmitter, Philippe C. and Terry Lynn Karl. 1991. "What Democracy is.. . and is Not." Journal of Democracy 2 (3): 75-88
  30. Coppedge, Michael, Angel Alvarez, and Claudia Maldonado. 2008. "Two Persistent Dimensions of Democracy: Contestation and Inclusiveness." The Journal of Politics70 (3): 632-647.
  31. Samuels, David. “Chapter 3: Democratic Political Regimes.” Essay. In Comparative Politics. New York: Pearson Education, 2013.
  32. Clark, William Roberts, Matt Golder, and Sona Nadenichek Golder. “Chapter 5: Economic Determinates of Democracy.” Chapter. In Foundations of Comparative Politics, 351–92.
  33. Högström, John. “Does the Choice of Democracy Measure Matter? Comparisons between the Two Leading Democracy Indices, Freedom House and Polity IV.” Government and Opposition 48, no. 2 (2013): 201–21. doi:10.1017/gov.2012.10.
  34. Piironen, Ossi. 2005. "Minimalist Democracy without Substance? an Evaluation of the Mainstream Measures of Democracy." Politiikka 47 (3): 189-204.
  35. Esaiasson, Peter, and Christopher Wlezien. "Advances in the study of democratic responsiveness: An introduction." Comparative political studies 50.6 (2017): 699-710.

Further reading
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