Can you measure democracy

One distinction is between so-called procedural, or institutional, definitions and substantive definitions. The former relate democracy to particular institutional structures, whereas the latter define democracy according to underlying principles. Another distinction relates to whether democracy is a dichotomous or continuous concept. There exist different proposals on how to measure democracy, more or less explicitly linked to different conceptual models.

However, even if one could agree on a conceptual model, there remain difficult questions related to Skip to main content Skip to table of contents. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available. Editors: Alex C. Contents Search. Measuring Democracy. Authors Authors and affiliations Carl Henrik Knutsen. How to cite. Synonyms Popular rule ; Representative government. This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Alexander, A. Measuring effective democracy: A defense. International Political Science Review, 33 , 41— Google Scholar. Beetham, D. Democracy and human rights. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bollen, K. Liberal democracy: Validity and method factors in cross-national measures.

American Journal of Political Science, 37 , — Coppedge, M. Conceptualizing and measuring democracy: A new approach. Perspectives on Politics, 9 , — Diamond, L. Assessing the quality of democracy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Goertz, G. The indices vary greatly in their approaches, consisting of as few as two individual indicators and as many as Taken together they comprise a combination of quantitative assessments like the distribution of seats in the national legislature among political parties, and qualitative judgements like whether safeguards against corruption are effective.

Aggregating these indicators into an index is a subjective exercise, recruiting the judgements of experts to identify which metrics to include and how to weight each appropriately. The table below illustrates the main components of three of the most referenced indices. We highlight these because their subindices align well with our criteria for broad and actionable framework.

Skip to main content. In this section. We the People Open Menu. Our Framework Open Menu. Dive Deeper Open Menu.