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Democracy Measurement Redux: A Critical Look at Some New Kids on the Block

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Staat, Rechtsstaat und Demokratie

Part of the book series: Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft ((VGPO))

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Abstract

Der von Lauth maßgeblich mitgeprägte Forschungszweig der Demokratiemessung hat sich in jüngerer Zeit zunehmend auf die vergleichende Bewertung der mittlerweile zahlreich vorliegenden Messinstrumente verlagert. Zu dieser methodisch anspruchsvollen Thematik stellen Jørgen Møller und Svend-Erik Skaaning in ihrem Beitrag drei Demokratieindizes vor und vergleichen diese systematisch anhand einer Reihe u. a. von Lauth entwickelten Kriterien. Ausgehend davon stellen sie zwei weitere, neue Messinstrumente vor, denen sie, abhängig vom Erkenntnisinteresse, einige Vorzüge gegenüber den älteren Ansätzen attestieren.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    An overview of extant democracy measures by Coppedge et al. 2017, S. 6 identifies five new measures based on original data, i.e., the three we subject to critical scrutiny plus LIED and V-Dem, discussed later in the chapter. BMR and LIED are clearly more used and known by scholars than practitioners, while DI, BTI, and V-Dem are all used for academic purposes as well as for policy-oriented goals and media coverage.

  2. 2.

    In both cases, the conceptual overlap between the BTI sub-index and the WGI measure is questionable. This undermines the rationale of the correlation analysis.

  3. 3.

    The last indicator, which is used to distinguish between electoral democracies and polyarchies, is new to v6. Other additions to this version are indicators on government turnover and different modes of democratic transitions and breakdowns. The most recent version of LIED is always available on Dataverse, https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/skaaning, and www.ps.au.dk/dedere.

  4. 4.

    The use of bivariate correlations to assess reliability and validity is dubious when measures are based on different sources and definitions and there is no perfect (gold standard) measure for use as baseline criterion.

  5. 5.

    In the correlational analysis, we use LIED+ from v6.0.

  6. 6.

    We have used the mean of the variable (.539) in our sample defined by the coverage of LIED.

  7. 7.

    But only when at least one of the measures is ordinal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Aarhus Universität, Aarhus C, Dänemark

    Jørgen Møller & Svend-Erik Skaaning

Authors
  1. Jørgen Møller
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  2. Svend-Erik Skaaning
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Correspondence to Svend-Erik Skaaning .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Universität Rostock, Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Deutschland

    Wolfgang Muno

  2. Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Deutschland

    Christoph Wagner

  3. Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzbur, Würzburg, Bayern, Deutschland

    Thomas Kestler

  4. Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, Deutschland

    Christoph Mohamad-Klotzbach

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Møller, J., Skaaning, SE. (2022). Democracy Measurement Redux: A Critical Look at Some New Kids on the Block. In: Muno, W., Wagner, C., Kestler, T., Mohamad-Klotzbach, C. (eds) Staat, Rechtsstaat und Demokratie. Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38759-4_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38759-4_19

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