Democracy measurement

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In political science and demography, the term democracy measurement refers to the attempt to divide the countries of the world into different degrees, i.e. categories graded according to democracy . It tries to come to an assessment of the democratic quality of a country. Quality of democracy aims at the democratic functioning of central democratic institutions and characteristics (e.g. elections). Different measurement methods often correlate with one another.

Methodical approach

The question of what democracy is and how the degree of democracy can be measured in terms of the democratic quality of a country cannot be answered directly. Like intelligence, health or culture, democracy is a thought construct that cannot be directly measured (“not visible”). By operationalizing its features, an indirect measurement of the construct is possible. However, it only provides versions of the construct that are fundamentally incomplete. The study of the characteristics of the democracies of individual countries is examined in various democracy indices, each of which is based on a certain selection of characteristics that describe democracy .

The determination of the Democracy Index of the magazine The Economist is based on 60 questions that enable the degree of democracy in 167 countries is measured annually. The Economist states in the report “Democracy Index 2012” that there is no consensus on how democracy should be measured. While promoting democracy is high on the list of US foreign policy priorities, there is no consensus within the US government about what constitutes a democracy.

The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany with its introductory statement: "The Federal Republic of Germany is a democratic and social federal state", defines with its 115 articles how democracy is to be designed in Germany and at the same time provides a catalog of characteristics of what democracy is.

Dichotomous measurements

Dichotomous measurements evaluate a country as either democratic or non-democratic.

ACLP

An example of a dichotomous measure of democracy is ACLP. This method is named after the first letters of the surnames of the scientists involved (Michael A lvarez, José Antonio C heibub, Fernando L imongi and Adam P rzeworski). The ACLP measurement begins in 1946 and defines democracies as those countries in which the rulers are determined by free elections. Furthermore, it sets four conditions for this:

  1. a freely elected head of government,
  2. a freely elected parliament,
  3. at least two parties run for elections,
  4. there has been at least one change of government with identical voting rights.

The ACLP measurement also showed problems. Japan was classified as a dictatorship due to the fourth condition until 1993. The LDP ruled there uninterruptedly from 1955 to 1993.

Continuous measurements

Continuous measurements evaluate a country as more or less democratic.

Polity index

World map according to the Polity IV Report 2011 :
The bluer, the more democratic - the redder, the more autocratic a country.

An example of a continuous measurement is the Polity Project initiated by Ted Robert Gurr . Two separate measurements are carried out for the variables democracy and autocracy . For each country, values ​​from 0 to 10 are given on each scale. The polity index value is then calculated from the democracy value minus the autocracy value. This results in a continuous scale from −10 (maximally autocratic; hereditary monarchy ) to +10 (maximally democratic, consolidated democracy).

In the Polity Project five dimensions are recorded, on the basis of which the degree of democracy or autocracy is to be determined:

  1. How competitive is the competition for government power?
  2. How open is the competition for government power?
  3. How limited is government power?
  4. How competitive is political participation?
  5. To what extent is political participation regulated?

The 2011 annual report contains index values ​​for 164 countries, some of which extend over a period since 1800. 95 states are classified as democracies (+6 to +10).

Freedom House Index

World map according to Freedom in the World 2016 :
  • free
  • partly free
  • not free

    • The non-governmental organization Freedom House produces an annual report, Freedom in the World , in which it assesses the level of democracy and freedom in countries and disputed territories around the world. The report is based on extensive checklists for the realization of political rights and civil liberties , on the basis of which assessments are carried out by country experts on a scale from 1 (most free) to 7 (least free). This is followed by a definition of threshold values ​​for the classification of a country as "free" (1.0 to 2.5), "partially free" (3.0 to 5.0) and "not free" (5.5 to 7, 0).

    Freedom in the World encompasses three dimensions in the area of ​​political rights and four dimensions in the area of ​​civil liberties:

    Political rights Civil liberties
    Electoral process Freedom of expression and belief
    Political pluralism and participation Freedom of assembly and association
    How the system of government works Rule of law
    0 Personal autonomy and individual rights

    The report has been collected annually since 1973 and currently covers 192 countries and 18 territories. In the 2013 annual report, 90 of these are classified as “free”, 58 as “partially free” and 47 as “not free”.

    Combined Index of Democracy

    World map according to the Combined Index of Democracy 2012 :
    The greener, the more democratic - the redder, the more autocratic a country.

    The Combined Index of Democracy (KID) developed by Hans-Joachim Lauth is based on a three-dimensional understanding of democracy that consists of the dimensions of freedom, equality and control. The measurements by Freedom House and the Polity project group are criticized for not depicting the dimension of control. That is why the KID tries to remedy this deficit by combining the data sets from the Polity Project and Freedom House with the Rule of Law indicator of the World Bank . In order to also include statehood in the measurement, the Political Stability Indicator of the World Bank is also taken into account. The KID scale encompasses values ​​from 0 to 10, where 0 stands for a strongly autocratic system and 10 for a fully democratic system. Thresholds are used to classify countries as autocracy (0 to 5), deficient democracy (5 to 7), and democracy (7 to 10).

    The 2012 annual report contains data on a total of 165 countries every two years over the period from 1996 to 2012.

    Democratization Index

    The index of democratization (ID) designed by Tatu Vanhanen measures the degree of democratization of states using the variables participation and competition . The index value is calculated by multiplying the unweighted turnout (share of active voters in the total population) by the degree of competition (100 - share of the seats of the strongest party in the national representative body) and then dividing the product by 100. This results in values ​​between 0 and 100 Democracy exists from an index value above 6, ie from a voter turnout greater than 20% and a degree of competition greater than 30%.

    Vanhanen presents index values ​​for 187 countries, some since 1810. 132 countries are classified as democratic.

    Democracy index

    Another continuous measurement of the degree of democracy in different countries has been the democracy index of The Economist magazine since 2006 . The following factors are included in the calculation of the democracy index: electoral process and pluralism, civil rights, functioning of the government, political participation, political culture. Within this index one speaks of two types of democracy and two types of regimes: complete democracies and incomplete democracies as well as hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes. The democracy index covers 167 different countries.

    Democracy barometer

    The Democracy Barometer tries to make the quality differences in democracy between established democracies more measurable. It was developed by an employee of the University of Zurich , the Center for Democracy Aarau ( Daniel Bochsler ) in collaboration with the Science Center Berlin ( Wolfgang Merkel ) and examined how the recognized democracies changed between 1975 and 2014. The aim is to measure the quality of the democracies of these states in order to subsequently be able to compare different (democratic) countries with regard to their democracy. Criteria such as the rule of law , transparency , participation , political competition, control of violence and the ability to implement democratic decisions are included in the democracy barometer. The informative value and correctness are sometimes strongly doubted, as Switzerland, a country known for direct democracy , scores worse than z. B. the USA. which is attributed to insufficiently developed systematics and assessment criteria.

    Democracy matrix

    The democracy matrix is ​​a measuring instrument for determining the democracy quality of states. It examines the dimensions of freedom , equality and control as well as five democratic central institutions ( elections , parties and civil society , media , rule of law and the functioning of the system of government ). The data basis is provided by the Varieties of Democracy project , which provides data for all states from 1900 to 2017 (as of February 2019).

    Democratic Audit

    Another way of measuring democracy in a country is the Democratic Audit . After British political scientists carried out such an audit for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) adopted this approach and helped citizens around the world conduct such an investigation. This undertaking differs fundamentally in that citizens of the respective country are supposed to lead and carry out the investigation instead of external experts, and that the results are not aggregated into a “final grade”. The investigation is also qualitative, so it does not attempt to make judgments about e.g. B. to express the state of human rights in figures, and should explicitly contribute to the debate on improving democracy in the country studied.

    See also

    literature

    • David Beetham (Ed.): Defining and Measuring Democracy. SAGE, London 1994, ISBN 0-8039-7789-1 .
    • Diego Giannone: Political and Ideological Aspects in the Measurement of Democracy: The Freedom House Case. In: Democratization. 17/1, 2010, pp. 68-97.
    • Hans-Joachim Lauth: Democracy and Democracy Measurement. A conceptual foundation for an intercultural comparison. 2nd Edition. VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-531-33855-2 .
    • Hans-Joachim Lauth, Oliver Kauff: Democracy measurement . The KID as an aggregated measure for comparative research. Empirical findings on the development of the regime from 1996 to 2010. (Würzburg working papers on political science and social research, No. 2). University of Würzburg, Würzburg 2012 ( PDF ).
    • Hans-Joachim Lauth, Gert Pickel , Christian Welzel (eds.): Democracy measurement. Concepts and findings in an international comparison. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2000, ISBN 3-531-13438-8 .
    • Thomas Müller, Susanne Pickel: How can democracy best be measured? On the concept quality of democracy indices. In: Political quarterly . 48/3, 2007, pp. 511-539.
    • Susanne Pickel , Gert Pickel: Political Culture and Democracy Research. Basic concepts, theories, methods. An introduction. VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-8100-3355-3 .
    • Manfred G. Schmidt : Democracy Theories. An introduction. 5th edition. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-17310-8 , pp. 370-398.
    • Tatu Vanhanen : A New Dataset for Measuring Democracy, 1810–1998. In: Journal of Peace Research. 37/2, 2000, pp. 251-265.

    Web links

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ Michael Stoiber, A New, Contextualized Measure for Democracy. Conceptualization and operationalization , Institute for Political Science, Technical University of Darmstadt, accessed on February 14, 2019.
    2. ^ Democracy index 2012 , The Economist and Intelligence Unit Report.
    3. ^ The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
    4. ↑ Democracy Barometer (ADF): Research Project of the NCCR Democracy for measuring the quality of democracy in established democracies (Daniel Bochsler and Wolfgang Merkel [WZB]). Duration: 10 / 2009–09 / 2013 In: Annual Report ZDA 2012 ( Memento of the original from November 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zdaarau.ch archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 476 kB). P. 11.
    5. ↑ IP 15: Democracy Barometer.
    6. ↑ tagesschau.sf.tv
    7. ↑ democracybarometer.org
    8. ↑ Martin Senti : Bad grade also has good - more liberal than egalitarian Switzerland . In: NZZ from January 28, 2011. Online at nzz.ch.
    9. ↑ Joachim Blatter : Democracy - republican and liberal view . In: NZZ from February 22, 2011. Online at nzz.ch.