Assessing the Assessors: Correlating Democracy Methodologies

This paper considers the question of how to “measure” democracy i.e. attach an objective, or at least standardized, quantitative value to a nation or polity’s level of democracy. A number of instruments have been independently developed with this aim in mind. To what extent do they measure the same phenomenon, and how closely are their findings correlated? This study finds a significant variance between recent data from three democracy assessment instruments analyzed. This is an important question not only for academic research, but also for policy-makers, as increasingly important decisions such as the allocation of foreign aid are predicted upon assessments of a country’s level of adherence to democratic practices.