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Measuring Polyarchy Across the Globe, 1900–2017

Teorell, Jan LU orcid ; Coppedge, Michael ; Lindberg, Staffan and Skaaning, Svend Erik (2019) In Studies in Comparative International Development 54(1). p.71-95
Abstract

This paper presents a new measure polyarchy for a global sample of 182 countries from 1900 to 2017 based on the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data, deriving from an expert survey of more than 3000 country experts from around the world, with on average 5 experts rating each indicator. By measuring the five components of Elected Officials, Clean Elections, Associational Autonomy, Inclusive Citizenship, and Freedom of Expression and Alternative Sources of Information separately, we anchor this new index directly in Dahl’s (1971) extremely influential theoretical framework. The paper describes how the five polyarchy components were measured and provides the rationale for how to aggregate them to the polyarchy scale. We find that personal... (More)

This paper presents a new measure polyarchy for a global sample of 182 countries from 1900 to 2017 based on the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data, deriving from an expert survey of more than 3000 country experts from around the world, with on average 5 experts rating each indicator. By measuring the five components of Elected Officials, Clean Elections, Associational Autonomy, Inclusive Citizenship, and Freedom of Expression and Alternative Sources of Information separately, we anchor this new index directly in Dahl’s (1971) extremely influential theoretical framework. The paper describes how the five polyarchy components were measured and provides the rationale for how to aggregate them to the polyarchy scale. We find that personal characteristics or ideological predilections of the V-Dem country experts do not systematically predict their ratings on our indicators. We also find strong correlations with other existing measures of electoral democracy, but also decisive differences where we believe the evidence supports the polyarchy index having higher face validity.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Democratization, Measurement, Polyarchy, Validity
in
Studies in Comparative International Development
volume
54
issue
1
pages
25 pages
publisher
Transaction Publishers
external identifiers
  • scopus:85049652217
ISSN
0039-3606
DOI
10.1007/s12116-018-9268-z
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
0ec29735-51f8-4a6c-bf1d-4e11f27188a0
date added to LUP
2018-07-20 11:40:04
date last changed
2022-04-25 08:02:42
@article{0ec29735-51f8-4a6c-bf1d-4e11f27188a0,
  abstract     = {{<p>This paper presents a new measure polyarchy for a global sample of 182 countries from 1900 to 2017 based on the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data, deriving from an expert survey of more than 3000 country experts from around the world, with on average 5 experts rating each indicator. By measuring the five components of Elected Officials, Clean Elections, Associational Autonomy, Inclusive Citizenship, and Freedom of Expression and Alternative Sources of Information separately, we anchor this new index directly in Dahl’s (1971) extremely influential theoretical framework. The paper describes how the five polyarchy components were measured and provides the rationale for how to aggregate them to the polyarchy scale. We find that personal characteristics or ideological predilections of the V-Dem country experts do not systematically predict their ratings on our indicators. We also find strong correlations with other existing measures of electoral democracy, but also decisive differences where we believe the evidence supports the polyarchy index having higher face validity.</p>}},
  author       = {{Teorell, Jan and Coppedge, Michael and Lindberg, Staffan and Skaaning, Svend Erik}},
  issn         = {{0039-3606}},
  keywords     = {{Democratization; Measurement; Polyarchy; Validity}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1}},
  pages        = {{71--95}},
  publisher    = {{Transaction Publishers}},
  series       = {{Studies in Comparative International Development}},
  title        = {{Measuring Polyarchy Across the Globe, 1900–2017}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12116-018-9268-z}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/s12116-018-9268-z}},
  volume       = {{54}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}