Transcript The Economist Intelligence Unit*s Democracy index

Comparative Politics, Marco Giuliani
07/05/2012
Freedom house
Matteo Demontis
Conceptualization
Freedom
Political Rights
Civil Liberties
Rating Process

Political Rights (10 + 2 questions)
1. Electoral Process (3)
2. Political Pluralism and Participation (4)
3. Functioning of Government (3)
4. Discretionary Questions (2)
Rating Process

Civil Liberties (15 questions)
1. Freedom of Expression and Belief (4)
2. Associational and Organizational Rights (3)
3. Rule of Law (4)
4. Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights (4)
Scoring
Degree of Adherence to International Human Rights
Standards:
0 No good practices
1 Few good practices OR
Some good practices, but no good laws
2 Some good practices OR
Many good practices, but few good laws
3 Many good practices OR
Most/all good practices, and some good laws
4 Most/all good practices and corresponding good laws
Aggregation
Political Rights (PR)
Civil Liberties (CL)
Total scores
Rating
Total scores
Rating
36-40
1
53-60
1
30-35
2
44-52
2
24-29
3
35-43
3
18-23
4
26-34
4
12-17
5
17-25
5
6-11
6
8-16
6
0-5 *
7
0-7
7
Aggregation
Combined Average of the PR and CL Ratings
Country Status
1.0 to 2.5
Free
3.0 to 5.0
Partly Free
5.5 to 7.0
Not Free
Links
Results 2012:
http://www.freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-world
Checklist Questions:
http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world2011/checklist-questions-and-guidelines
Methodology:
http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world2012/methodology
Critiques

Maximalist definition

No clear coding rule

No disaggregate data

Internal coherence
Francesca Casarico
Aim:
coding the authority characteristics of states in the world system for purposes of
comparative, quantitative analysis
Unit of analysis:
“polity”: political or governmental organization; a society or institution with an
organized government; state; body politic
States with total population greater than 500.000
Annual coding for 164 states over the years 1800-2010
Main index:
examines concomitant qualities of democratic and autocratic authority:
 Executive recruitment
Constraints on executive authority
Political competition
Operational indicators
Democracy
Autocracy
The Polity score
•
Computed by subtracting the authocracy score from the democracy score
•
21 point scale ranging from -10 (hereditary monarchy) to +10 (consolidated democracy)
•
Spectrum that spans from fully istitutionalized authocracies through mixed, or
inchoerent, authority regimes to fully institutionalized democracies.
-10 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0
autocracies
1
2
3
anocracies
+
standardized codes:
- 66: interruption period
- 77: interregnum period
- 88: transition period
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
democracies
Country-year format
State “continuity and change”
Polity-case format
Regime “persistence and change”
Critiques
• Too minimal definition
• Inappropriate aggregation procedure
• Conceptual logic: problem of redundancy
INDEX OF EFFECTIVE
DEMOCRACY
(Welzel & Inglehart)
Gaia Lovisolo
CREATION OF THE INDEX
They start from the Freedom
House index but they create a new
index that keeps into consideration
not only the extent to which formal
liberties are institutionalized, but
also the extent to which they are
actually practiced.
ELEMENTS OF THE INDEX
●
Effective (liberal) democracy
vs
Formal (electoral) democracy
To differentiate between the two we
look at the elite behavior, because it
determines weather democratic
rules are genuinely applied, or
weather democracy exists only in
name
Self-expression values
●
Strongly correlated with:
● Socioeconomic development
●Democratic institutions
They work together to broaden
autonomous human choice
PROCESS
Socioeconomic
development
Self-expression
values
Democratic institutions
and liberal democracy
Construction of the index
Freedom House
measure of civil and
political rights
x
World bank's
anticorruption score
(indicator of ”elite
integrity”)
EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THIS
GENUINE MEASURE OF DEMOCRACY AND SELFEXPRESSION VALUES, WE FIND A STRONG
CORRELATION OF R=0.90 ACROSS 73 NATIONS.
Figure 7-1 Self-expression values and formal democracy.
Figure 7-2. Self-expression values and Effective Democracy
Possible critique?
Direction of causality
Comparative Positive, Marco Giuliani
07/05/2012
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s
Democracy Index
Angelica Puricelli
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The overall index is based on five categories, each rating on a 0 to 10 score, so
the overall index is the simple average of them :
Electoral process and pluralism
Civil liberties
Functioning of government
Political participation
Political culture
1.
2.
3.
4.
Each category indexes is based on the sum of the 60 indicators score with a
combination of a dichotomous and a three-point scoring system, then they are
converted to a scale of 0 to 10. Adjustments to the category scores are made
if countries do not score a 1 in the following critical areas for democracy:
Whether national elections are free and fair;
The security of voters;
The influence of foreign powers on government;
The capability of the civil service to implement policies.
Each country can be classified as:
• Full democracy (score: from 8 to 10)
• Flawed democracy (score: from 6 to 7.9)
• Hybrid regime (score: from 4 to 5.9)
• Authoritarian regime (below 4)
•
•
•
Features of the index:
Use of public opinion surveys (in “political partecipation” and in “political
culture”)
Participation and voter turnout are seen as legitimacy of the current system
(positive relation with democracy)
The predominance of the legislative branches over the executive power has a
positive correlation with the measure of the overall democracy.
Democracy index by regime type
Type of regime
Countries
% of countries
% of world
population
Full democracies
25
15.0
11.3
Flawed
democracies
53
31.7
37.1
Hybrid regimes
37
22.2
14.0
Authoritarian
regimes
52
31.1
37.6
Democracy index average by region
Rank
Region
2006
2008
2010
2011
1
Northern
America
8.64
8.64
8.63
8.59
2
Western
Europe
8.60
8.61
8.45
8.40
3
Latin
america &
the
Caribbean
6.37
6.43
6.37
6.35
4
Asia &
Australasia
5.44
5.58
5.53
5.51
5
Central &
Eastern
Europe
5.76
5.67
5.55
5.50
6
SubSaharan
Africa
4.24
4.28
4.23
4.32
7
Middle
East &
North
Africa
3.53
3.54
3.43
3.62
Total
5.52
5.55
5.46
5.49
Critiques
• Bias
• Turnout and the predominance of legislative
ACPL database model
(Alvarez, Cheibub, Przeworski, Limongi)
“DEMOCRACY AND
DEVELOPMENT: POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND MATERIAL
WELL-BEING IN THE WORLD, 1950-1990 “
IMPACT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS ON ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT
Giulia Frenquellucci
Empirical features
135 countries; 4126 observations; 105 variables
Variables Examples
REG: Dummy variable coded 1 for dictatorships and 0 for democracies. Transition years are coded as the
regime that emerges in that year. For instance, there was a transition from democracy to dictatorship in
Argentina in 1955. In that year, REG=1 ;
MOBILIZE: Classification of political regimes in which dictatorships are distinguished by the presence of
political parties. Coded 0 if democracy; 1 if mobilizing dictatorship (with parties); 2 if exclusionary
dictatorship (without parties). Transition years are coded as the regime that emerges in that year ;
ETHNIC: Percentage of population of the largest ETHNIC group, measured in the year for which data
were available (roughly 1976-1985). [The Economist 1988 and Vanhanen 1992]. ;
LEGSELEC: Legislative selection. Coded 0 if no legislature exists (includes cases in which there is a
constituent assembly without ordinary legislative powers); 1 non-elective legislature (examples include
the selection of legislators by the effective executive, or on the basis of heredity or ascription); 2 if
elective (legislators, or members of the lower house in a bicameral system, are selected by means of
either direct or indirect popular election). [Banks 1996, but modified and completed where
appropriate].
DICHOTOMOUS MEASUREMENT
[a measure that has only two discrete categories of values]
Democracy
1.
2.
3.
4.
The chief executive is elected;
The legislature is elected;
There is more than one party
competing in the election;
An alternation in power under
identical electoral rules has
taken place;
Dictatorship
If these don’t
hold
Underlying Principles
The importance of contested elections
Minimalist definition ( Schumpeterian ) of democracy
“examine empirically, rather than decide by definition, whether the repeated holding
of contested elections is associated with other features at times attributed to
democracies: social and economic equality, control by citizens over politicians,
effective exercise of political rights, widespread participation, freedom from
arbitrary violence.”
Two logically independent claims:
• A validity claim: democracy is first a question of kind before it is one of degree (as
Sartori says “classify before quantify”)
• A reliability claim: dichotomy contains less error in measurement than do graded
measurements (like the ones that for example allow the presence of categories such
as semi-democracy).
Criticisms:
Reich et al.
• Dichotomous measurement appears both methodologically regressive and lacking in face
validity.
• Impossible to exclude from the analysis categories like semi-democracies when these have
been a very frequent outcome of regime change.
VANHANEN’S INDEX OF
DEMOCRACY
Marija Zalimaite
 Tatu
Vanhanen – emeritus professor at
University of Tampere and the University
of Helsinki
 The
index covers 187 countries from 1810
to 2000
7 VARIABLES
 Vanhanen’s
country number
 Year
 Competition
 Participation
 Index
of democracy
 State name abbreviation from the
Correlates of War project (COW)
 COW country number
COMPETITION
 The
smaller parties’ share of the votes
cast in parliamentary or presidential
elections, or both – to indicate the degree
of competition
 Calculated
by subtracting the % of votes
won by the largest party from 100
PARTICIPATION
 The
% of population which actually voted
in the same elections
 Calculated
from total population
INDEX OF DEMOCRACY (ID)
 Competition
and Participation combined
into Index of Democratization
 Minimum
thresholds: 30% of Competition,
10% of Participation and 5.0 index points
for ID
Italy : Competition – 65.2; Participation – 65.56;
ID – 42.75
 USA : Comp – 51.3; Part – 37.19; ID – 19.08
 UK : Comp – 56.8; Part – 53.7; ID – 30.15
 China: Comp – 0; Part – 0; ID – 0
 Egypt: Comp – 13.15; Part – 22.48; ID – 2.96
 Belarus: Comp – 15; Part – 47.97; ID – 7.2

Polyarchy and
Contestation scales
by Coppedge & Reinicke
SPSS file
Variables
• Polyarchy scale
• Contestation scale
The Contestation scale is a less precise but
more reliable version of the Polyarchy scale.
Fairness of
elections
Contestation
scale
Freedom of
organization
Freedom of
expression
Media
pluralism
Free and Fair Elections
Heads of the government are elected, no
frauds
Heads of the government are elected, frauds
occur and are unpunished
No meaningful elections
Freedom of Organization
No restrictions on purely political organizations that
have not previously committed mass murder.
Some political parties that have not committed mass
murder are banned, but membership in some
alternatives to official organizations is permitted.
The only relatively independent organizations that are
allowed to exist are nonpolitical.
No independent organizations are allowed
Freedom of Expression
Citizens express their views on all topics
without fear of punishment
Dissent is discouraged, whether by informal
pressure or by systematic censorship, but
control is incomplete.
All open dissent is forbidden and effectively
suppressed.
Availability of Alternative
Sources of Information
Alternative sources of information exist and are
protected by law.
Alternative sources of information are widely available
but government versions are presented in preferential
fashion.
The government dominates the diffusion of information,
alternative sources exist only for nonpolitical issues.
There is no public alternative to official information.
Interpreting the Contestation
Scale Scores Information
Fair elections, full freedom for expression and
media
Fair elections, full freedom for expression,
preferential presentation of official views in the
media
Fair elections, full freedom for political
organization, some public dissent is suppressed,
preferential presentation of official views in the
media.
Interpreting the Contestation
Scale Scores Information
Fair elections, some political organizations are
banned, some public dissent is suppressed,
preferential presentation of official views in the
media.
Elections are marred by fraud, some political
organizations are banned, some public dissent is
suppressed, preferential presentation of official views
in the media.
No meaningful elections, only nonpolitical
organizations are allowed or alternatives to the
official media are very limited.
Interpreting the Contestation
Scale Scores Information
No meaningful elections, only nonpolitical
organizations are allowed, some public dissent is
suppressed and alternatives to the official media
are very limited.
No meaningful elections, all organizations are
banned, all public dissent is suppressed, there is no
public alternative to official information.
No meaningful elections, all organizations are
banned, all public dissent is suppressed, there is
no public alternative to official information.
Evaluation
Strengths
• Identification of
attributes: fairness
• Test of intercoder
reliability
• Sophisticated
aggregation procedure
Weaknesses
• Minimialist definition:
omission of
participation, offices and
agenda setting
• Restricted empirical
(temporal) scope
by Munck and Verkuilen