3 Measures of Democracy

The study of democracy and authoritarianism is essential to comparative politics, offering insights on regime dynamics and characteristics. Researchers employ diverse measures to assess and compare democratic and authoritarian traits for the thorough research of political phenomena. The Freedom House Index, Polity IV, and the Democracy-Dictatorship (DD) are widely utilized metrics, each providing distinct approaches for examining the complexities of political systems. This essay assesses the the strengths and weaknesses of three measurements within the contexts of Asia and Latin America, places marked by varied political pathways, including established authoritarian governments and dynamic democracies (Danopoulos et al. 2019). The essay will examine how the effectiveness of these measures is contingent upon the specific research questions posed, highlighting the necessity of aligning methodological selections with the study’s objectives.

Freedom House

Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland (2009) assert that the Freedom House (FH) measure of democracy is an evaluative instrument founded on two seven-point scales: political rights and civil liberties. The scales are developed with a checklist of elements assessed by specialists, with the 2008 checklist comprising 62 items for political rights over ten categories and two discretionary items, and 80 items for civil liberties across 15 categories. The checklist encompasses inquiries regarding fundamental elements of democracy, including the fairness of electoral laws, the transparency of vote counting, the independence of media, and the personal autonomy and equality of opportunity afforded to citizens. Coders provide scores ranging from zero to four for each category of political rights and civil liberties, yielding maximum possible scores of 40 for political rights and 60 for civil liberties. The raw scores are further refined into seven-point scales for political rights and civil liberties, which may be amalgamated into a 2–14 scale (normalized to a range of 1 to 100) or classified as “free,” “partly free,” and “not free.”

Strengths: Freedom House (FH) provides comprehensive coverage by assessing political regimes using a comprehensive approach that transcends procedural measures such as the Democracy-Dictatorship (DD) index. FH employs a comprehensive criterion to evaluate both civil liberties and political rights, thereby offering a more comprehensive understanding of a nation’s democratic practices and overall freedom. For example, in Malaysia, elections are conducted; however, restrictions on civil liberties indicate authoritarian tendencies. FH is also effective in capturing democratic erosion; its indices emphasized declines in freedoms during Brazil’s military regime and Chile under Pinochet, even when some procedural elements had remained. Additionally, FH’s comprehensive examination of authoritarian practices, such as those in North Korea, offers a comprehensive framework for demonstrating the absence of civil and political liberties (Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland 2009).

Shen and Williamson (2005) conducted an analysis of the reliability of the Freedom House indicators (political rights, civil liberties, and press freedom) as a measure of democracy in 91 nations, including Asian and Latin American countries. They discovered that the measurement error levels of these indicators are only modest, which adds to the reliability in the accuracy of Freedom House rankings.

Weaknesses:  FH relies heavily on expert assessments and qualitative judgments, introducing significant subjectivity into the measurement process. This subjectivity raises concerns about potential biases and inconsistencies in coding. For example, it can lead to inconsistency in cases like Mexico, where clientelism and semi-democratic practices blur regime classification (Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland 2009).

Despite Shen and Williamson (2005) finding only modest measurement errors in Freedom House (FH) indicators, Seawright and Collier (2014) highlight significant weaknesses. Case studies, such as those on Costa Rica, reveal notable scoring errors, showing that FH’s evaluations are not always accurate. Additionally, structural equation modeling (SEM-L) by Bollen and Paxton (2000) suggests that FH’s ratings may be biased, favoring Catholic countries while being more critical of Marxist regimes. These findings point to potential inconsistencies and subjectivity in FH’s assessments, raising concerns about its reliability and fairness.

The lack of transparency in scoring, such as in evaluating political rights in China, undermines the reliability of its classifications over time. The absence of detailed information regarding individual checklist items and the adjustments made by the survey team obscures the rationale behind country scores, hindering the replicability of the measure. Also, FH’s score for China in 1978, suggesting an improvement in democracy, contradicts the reality of continued authoritarian rule.

Lueders and Lust (2018) argues that the meaning of changes in polychotomous or continuous regime indicators, like Freedom House’s Political Rights or Civil Liberties index, is unclear because these scores combine many subcomponents. Each overall score can result from multiple combinations of subcategory and question-level scores. For example, the same seven-point rating can be produced by numerous different combinations of lower-level scores, making it difficult to interpret what a specific change in the overall score actually reflects. FH’s focus on civil liberties might overstate undemocratic features in transitional regimes like Peru or Guatemala, where basic institutions are improving but civil rights remain weak

Polity IV

The Polity IV dataset measures political regimes by aggregating “authority patterns,” focusing on five components. It categorizes governance based on whether the chief executive has unchecked authority, faces moderate or substantial checks from a legislature, or is subordinate to legislative power. Other components, such as the Competitiveness and Regulation of Political Participation, examine how inclusively and systematically citizens can participate in political processes, with attention to the role of elections and the presence of political violence. Each component has a unique scoring range, and these scores are combined into a 21-point scale ranging from -10 (authoritarian) to +10 (democratic) (Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland 2009). The Polity IV framework focuses on the processes of executive selection and political participation rather than broader contextual factors like campaign financing or justice systems. By capturing detailed data on these elements, Polity IV serves as a comprehensive resource for studying political systems and their structural characteristics across different countries and periods (Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland 2009).

Strengths:  Polity IV is particularly well-suited for the analysis of institutional stability and changes, as it assesses executive constraints, political competition, and participation. This is beneficial for the examination of the rise of populist leaders who consolidate power in Latin America, such as in Venezuela, or the constraints on executives in countries like Argentina during democratic consolidation.

This measure provides transparency at the component level. Polity IV, in contrast to FH, assigns scores to specific dimensions, including the competitiveness of political participation and the openness of executive recruitment. This information enables researchers to identify institutional deficiencies, such as the absence of legislative oversight of the executive in Cambodia or the function of legislative checks on the executive in Brazil.

Weaknesses: Polity IV’s inclusion of political violence in its measures can distort the evaluation of regimes by failing to separate governance structures from episodes of conflict. For instance, Colombia’s long-standing internal conflict reduces its score, even though its democratic institutions remain functional. Similarly, in Peru, ongoing conflict diminishes its rating despite progress in electoral processes, highlighting how political violence can obscure improvements in democratic frameworks.

This conflation of political violence with regime evaluation weakens Polity IV’s capacity to assess broader democratic trends. For example, the measure struggles to reflect the erosion of democratic values in cases like China, where institutional reforms have not translated into meaningful democratic progress. Such nuances are often lost in Polity IV’s aggregated scoring system.

The challenges of accurately classifying hybrid regimes, particularly in Asia and Latin America, further underscore Polity IV’s limitations. Countries like Malaysia or Peru often fall into intermediate categories that the measure struggles to define clearly, reducing its reliability in these contexts. This difficulty reflects a broader issue with Polity IV’s approach to categorizing regimes that do not fit neatly into conventional democratic or autocratic classifications.

Seawright and Collier (2014) provide an illustrative example of Costa Rica, which highlights a key weakness in the Polity indicator: its inability to capture historical political complexities. Despite experiencing coups and military interventions in the first half of the 20th century, Polity assigns Costa Rica a fully democratic score for the entire century. This oversimplification reflects how Polity’s reliance on aggregated institutional indicators can overlook critical events that disrupt democracy, leading to inaccurate classifications. These shortcomings make Polity IV less reliable for analyzing periods of political instability or transition, where nuanced and context-sensitive evaluations are essential.

Democracy-Dictatorship (DD)

The Democracy-Dictatorship (DD) framework defines political regimes through a minimalist, procedural lens, emphasizing the presence or absence of contested elections as the central criterion for categorizing a regime as democratic or dictatorial. According to DD, a democracy is a regime where leaders are selected through competitive elections that are free, fair, and inclusive. This classification depends on observable, objective criteria, such as the holding of elections, the existence of more than one political party, and the peaceful transition of power based on electoral outcomes. In this minimalist approach, DD does not incorporate the outcomes of these elections or broader normative elements, such as the representation of citizen preferences, accountability, or socio-economic equality. Instead, the framework focuses strictly on the procedural mechanism of how leaders are chosen. A regime qualifies as democratic if contested elections occur regularly, offering citizens a genuine opportunity to select their leaders. Conversely, if these conditions are not met, the regime is categorized as a dictatorship.

The DD measure operates on a dichotomous basis, dividing regimes into two clear types: democracies and dictatorships. It does not attempt to evaluate the degree of democracy or the nuances within either category. This simplicity is underpinned by transparent coding and aggregation rules, relying exclusively on factual, observable events. For instance, the presence of elections, the number of competing parties, and the transfer of executive power are sufficient to determine the classification.

Strengths: This makes it especially effective for the analysis of unambiguous regime transitions, such as the transition from dictatorship to democracy in Indonesia or the transition in Chile post-Pinochet. DD’s minimalist approach effectively classifies regimes such as North Korea as dictatorships due to the absence of contested elections, and Mexico as a democracy during the post-PRI era when elections became competitive. DD is in good alignment with studies that connect regimes to economic outcomes, a critical issue in developing nations such as Bolivia or Bangladesh, by concentrating on observable features, such as whether elections occurred or how leadership changed. DD is highly dependable in the classification of authoritarian regimes, such as China and Bahrain, as it does not rely on subjective interpretations and instead relies on observable events, such as elections.

Weaknesses: The first issue comes with DD measure is Over-Simplification of Democracy: By defining democracy solely through contested elections, DD fails to account for broader substantive elements of democracy. This is particularly problematic in countries like like Malaysia and Guatemala, where elections exist but civil liberties and accountability mechanisms are severely compromised.

DD has the Inability to Capture Hybrid Regimes: DD’s dichotomy makes it ill-suited for analyzing regimes with mixed features, such as Malaysia’s electoral authoritarianism or in Peru, where competitive elections coexist with elite dominance and weak institutions. By ignoring civil liberties and governance outcomes, DD struggles to evaluate the broader democratic quality of regimes like Chile during Pinochet’s military rule or Brazil under military dictatorship.

DD Neglect the Outcomes. DD overlooks whether contested elections lead to effective governance, public accountability, or the protection of civil liberties, which are critical in regions like Asia, where clientelism (in the Philippines) and corruption (in Pakistan) undermine democratic practices.

Dependence on the Particular Question Researchers Are Addressing

The choice of measure heavily depends on the research question being addressed. The availability and reliability of data vary significantly across regions. The strengths and weaknesses of different measures might be more pronounced in Asia and Latin America due to factors like data availability, cultural context, and historical trajectories of democratization. It is crucial to carefully consider the specificities of the research question and the regional context to select the most appropriate measure. Remember that no single measure is perfect. The sources mentioned to discuss these three measures do caution against treating any single measure as universally applicable, as the most appropriate measure is contingent upon the specific research question and theoretical framework. Researchers should be transparent about their choice of measure and acknowledge its limitations. They should also consider using multiple measures to assess the robustness of their findings.

For research questions centered on basic regime classification or the effects of being a democracy versus a dictatorship, the DD measure may be most appropriate due to its clear distinction between these two regime types. Also, if studying the impact of regime transitions on economic growth, a dichotomous measure like DD might be appropriate. Researchers could look specifically at countries where contested elections were abolished and the regime that was installed lasted for more than five years. However, if the focus is on variations within democracies or the influence of specific democratic institutions, measures like Polity IV or Freedom House might be more suitable. As Elkins (2000) suggests, when investigating significant relationships between democracy and other variables, using a continuous measure of democracy, such as Freedom House, is generally more effective than relying on a dichotomous measure like DD. If studying the impact of democratic quality on civil war onset, a continuous measure like Polity IV could be a good choice because it is designed to capture subtle differences in regime characteristics If studying the relationship between press freedom and government accountability, Freedom House, with its specific focus on civil liberties, might be the most relevant. studies exploring the relationship between regime type and human rights performance might benefit from Freedom House’s comprehensive assessment of political rights and civil liberties, providing a richer understanding of how regime characteristics relate to human rights outcomes.

Ultimately, the choice of a regime measure is not merely a technical detail but a decision with profound implications for the validity and interpretability of research findings. Researchers must engage in a critical evaluation of available measures, considering their conceptual underpinnings and potential biases, to ensure that the chosen measure aligns with the research question and contributes to a more accurate and nuanced understanding of political regimes and their impact.