Democracies and Indexes
Democracy means “rule by the people.” It is one of the most widely recognized forms of government, and a key distinguishing feature of democratic governments from autocracies and non-democratic regimes is that citizens have a wide range of freedoms that enable them to engage in political life. Among these are freedom of expression, association, movement and belief. In democracies, governments are able to make laws that protect these rights and ensure the fairness of elections and the legal system. They also allow citizens to make their choice of representatives who can be counted on to represent them in government and to monitor the activities of those in power.
However, this is just the start of what democracy can mean. It is vital that those who study the concept and its application consider all of its elements and not just those around a particular electoral process or form of governance. The etymological origins of the word suggest that the meaning of democracy is as much about what it is not as about what it is.
The definitions and indices of democracy vary considerably across approaches to its measurement. Some, such as the GI-DEM, rely on evaluations by country experts and the analysis of news reports to determine whether or not and to what extent a regime is democratic. Others, including the Freedom in the World Index and V-Dem, focus on evaluating a set of easy to observe characteristics such as regular elections with several parties competing, a high degree of participation by citizens, and the existence of a rule of law.
There is, of course, a great need for data on the state of democracy in the world. This is particularly true when the democratic principles that underlie it are questioned, as they have been by many of the seismic shifts in politics around the world in recent times: the Brexit vote; the election of demagogues who threaten liberal values; the rise of anti-Semitism and xenophobia; and the reversal of decades of progress towards economic and social equality in the United States.
There are many challenges in assessing democracy, particularly in a way that can provide useful information for policy makers, journalists and other users of the data. The main challenge is the definition of democracy itself, which is difficult to pin down in a precise way and is constantly changing and evolving as societies change. It is important that the definition takes account of how people are engaged in politics, not just how they vote, and that it includes those movements that do not fit neatly into the realm of politics with a capital p – from platform cooperatives to fourth wave feminism – but which nonetheless have profound implications for the concepts of representation, citizenship and government.
Democracy means “rule by the people.” It is one of the most widely recognized forms of government, and a key distinguishing feature of democratic governments from autocracies and non-democratic regimes is that citizens have a wide range of freedoms that enable them to engage in political life. Among these are freedom of expression, association, movement and belief. In democracies, governments are able to make laws that protect these rights and ensure the fairness of elections and the legal system. They also allow citizens to make their choice of representatives who can be counted on to represent them in government and to monitor the activities of those in power. However, this is just the start of what democracy can mean. It is vital that those who study the concept and its application consider all of its elements and not just those around a particular electoral process or form of governance. The etymological origins of the word suggest that the meaning of democracy is as much about what it is not as about what it is. The definitions and indices of democracy vary considerably across approaches to its measurement. Some, such as the GI-DEM, rely on evaluations by country experts and the analysis of news reports to determine whether or not and to what extent a regime is democratic. Others, including the Freedom in the World Index and V-Dem, focus on evaluating a set of easy to observe characteristics such as regular elections with several parties competing, a high degree of participation by citizens, and the existence of a rule of law. There is, of course, a great need for data on the state of democracy in the world. This is particularly true when the democratic principles that underlie it are questioned, as they have been by many of the seismic shifts in politics around the world in recent times: the Brexit vote; the election of demagogues who threaten liberal values; the rise of anti-Semitism and xenophobia; and the reversal of decades of progress towards economic and social equality in the United States. There are many challenges in assessing democracy, particularly in a way that can provide useful information for policy makers, journalists and other users of the data. The main challenge is the definition of democracy itself, which is difficult to pin down in a precise way and is constantly changing and evolving as societies change. It is important that the definition takes account of how people are engaged in politics, not just how they vote, and that it includes those movements that do not fit neatly into the realm of politics with a capital p – from platform cooperatives to fourth wave feminism – but which nonetheless have profound implications for the concepts of representation, citizenship and government.