Democracy indices are quantitative and comparative assessments of the state of democracy
The democracy indices differ in whether they are categorical, such as classifying countries into democracies, , and autocracies,
Democracy indices vary in their scope and the weight assigned to different aspects of democracy. These aspects include the breadth and strength of core democratic institutions, the competitiveness and inclusiveness of polyarchy, freedom of expression, governance quality, adherence to democratic norms, co-option of opposition, and other related factors, such as electoral reform, electoral fraud, and popular support of anti-democratic alternatives.[ "Democracy and Autocracy, Why do Democracies Develop and Decline", Vol. 21(1) June 2023, Democracy and Autocracy Section, American Political Science Association.]
Prominent democracy indices
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Freedom in the World, a yearly survey and report by the U.S.-based
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The Economist 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 categories measuring pluralism, civil liberties, and political culture.
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V-Dem Democracy Indices by the V-Dem Institute distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and quantifies these principles.
[.] 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.
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Bertelsmann Transformation Index by the Bertelsmann Stiftung evaluates the development status and governance of political and economic transformation processes on the path to constitutional democracy and a market economy for developing and transition countries around the world. Bertelsmann Transformation Index categorizes countries into: hard-line autocracy, moderate autocracy, very defective democracy, defective democracy, and consolidating democracy.
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The Global State of Democracy Indices by International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance assesses democratic performance using different types of sources: expert surveys, standards-based coding by research groups and analysts, observational data and composite measures.
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The Democracy Perception Index, published annually by the Alliance of Democracies, is the world's largest annual survey on how people perceive the state of democracy
Indices measuring aspects of democracy
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Effective number of parties is an index of the adjusted number of political parties in a country's party system.
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Electoral Integrity Project surveys academics on the perceived electoral integrity of countries and subnational entities
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Fragile States Index, formerly the Failed States Index, is an annual report that aims to assess states' vulnerability to conflict or collapse, ranking all sovereign states with membership in the United Nations where there is enough data available for analysis.
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Gallagher index measures an electoral system's relative disproportionality between votes received and seats in a legislature.
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The Pedersen index is a measure of political volatility in party systems.
Other measured aspects of democracy include voter turnout, efficiency gap, wasted vote, and political efficacy.
Historical
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Democracy-Dictatorship Index was a binary measure of democracy and dictatorship.
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Democracy Ranking was a democracy ranking by the Association for Development and Advancement of the Democracy Award.
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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).
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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.
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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, and evaluating whether necessary characteristics are present.
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The Index of Democratization created by Tatu Vanhanen.
Maps of indices
File:V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index 2025 Robinson World.svg| V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index for 2024
Difficulties in measuring democracy
Democracy is a multifaceted concept encompassing the functioning of diverse institutions, many of which are challenging to measure. As a result, limitations arise in quantifying and econometrically analyzing democracy's potential effects or its relationships with other phenomena, such as inequality, poverty, and education. etc.
Given the challenges of obtaining reliable data on within-country variations in aspects of democracy, much of the academic focus has been on cross-country comparisons. However, significant variations in democratic institutions can exist within individual countries, highlighting the limitations of such an approach. Another dimension of the difficulty in measuring democracy lies in the ongoing debate between minimalist and maximalist definitions of democracy. A minimalist conception of democracy defines democracy by primarily considering the essence of democracy; such as electoral procedures.
[Dahl, Robert A.; Ian Shapiro; José Antônio Cheibub; and Adam Przeworski. "Minimalist Conception of Democracy: A Defense." Essay. In The Democracy Sourcebook, pp. 12–17. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2003.] A maximalist definition of democracy can include outcomes, such as economic or administrative efficiency, into measures of democracy.
[Schmitter, Philippe C. and Terry Lynn Karl. 1991. "What Democracy is.. . and is Not." Journal of Democracy 2 (3): 75–88] Some aspects of democracy, such as responsiveness
or
accountability, are generally not included in democracy indices due to the difficulty measuring these aspects. Other aspects, such as judicial independence or quality of the
electoral system, are included in some democracy indices but not in others.
Some measures of democracy, such as Freedom House and Polity IV, adopt a maximalist understanding of democracy by analyzing indicators that extend beyond mere electoral procedures. These measures aim to capture broader dimensions of democratic governance, reflecting a more comprehensive view of political systems.[ The Journal of Politics. 70 (3): 632–647.] These measures attempt to gauge contestation and inclusion; two features Robert Dahl argued are essential in democracies that successfully promote accountable governments.[Samuels, David. "Chapter 3: Democratic Political Regimes." Essay. In Comparative Politics. New York: Pearson Education, 2013.][Clark, William Roberts; Matt Golder; and Sona Nadenichek Golder. "Chapter 5: Economic Determinates of Democracy." Chapter. In Foundations of Comparative Politics, pp. 351–392.] The democratic rating given by these mainstream measures can vary greatly depending on the indicators and evidence they deploy.[Piironen, Ossi. 2005. "Minimalist Democracy without Substance? an Evaluation of the Mainstream Measures of Democracy." Politiikka. 47 (3): 189–204.]
Dieter Fuchs and Edeltraud Roller argue that accurately measuring the quality of democracy requires complementing objective metrics with subjective measurements that reflect the perspectives and experiences of citizens.
Critiques of measures of democracy
Data on democracy, and particularly global indices of democracy, and the data they rely on, have been the subject of scrutiny and criticized by various scholars. Gerardo L. Munck and Jay Verkuilen for instance, have raised concerns about the methodologies used by prominent democracy indices such as Freedom House and Polity, such as the concept of democracy they measured, the design of indicators, and the aggregation rule.
[Gerardo L. Munck and Jay Verkuilen, "Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Indices," Comparative Political Studies.
]
/ref> Political scientists Andrew T. Little and Anne Meng "highlight measurement concerns regarding time-varying bias in expert-coded data" such as Freedom House and V-Dem and encourage improving expert-coding practices.
See also
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Corruption Perception Index
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Democratic transition
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Types of democracy
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List of international rankings
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List of freedom indices
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List of globalization-related indices
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List of countries by system of government
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List of forms of government
Further reading
External links
