Why Choice Matters: Revisiting and Comparing Measures of Democracy

Abstract: Measures of democracy are in high demand. Scientific and public audiences use them to describe political realities and to substantiate causal claims about those realities. This introduction to the thematic issue reviews the history of democracy measurement since the 1950s. It identifies four development phases of the field, which are characterized by three recurrent topics of debate: (1) what is democracy, (2) what is a good measure of democracy, and (3) do our measurements of democracy register real-world developments? As the answers to those questions have been changing over time, the field of democracy measurement has adapted and reached higher levels of theoretical and methodological sophistication. In effect, the challenges facing contemporary social scientists are not only limited to the challenge of constructing a sound index of democracy. Today, they also need a profound understanding of the differences between various measures of democracy and their implications for empiri

Angaben zum Objekt

• Standort: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Umfang: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: Englisch
• Anmerkungen: Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Politics and Governance ; 6 (2018) 1 ; 1-10

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Politik

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wo): Mannheim
• (wann): 2018
• Urheber: Giebler, Heiko ; Ruth-Lovell, Saskia P. ; Tanneberg, Dag

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: 10.17645/pag.v6i1.1428
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-56781-6
• Rechteinformation: Open Access; Open Access; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 25.03.2025, 13:43 MEZ