Democracy: from degree to
type.
Two indexes
Pietro Besozzi
Jacopo Gandin
Freedom House I
FH is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization, that
provides, from 1972, an annual evaluation of the
state of freedom in the world.
FH measures the level of freedom in 193 states
by using two broad categories: political rights
(PR) and civil liberties (CL).
Political Rights (PR)
Political rights enable people to participate freely
in the political process, including the right to vote
freely for distinct alternatives in legitimate
elections, compete for public office, join political
parties and organizations, and elect
representatives who have a decisive impact on
public policies and are accountable to the
electorate.
Civil liberties (CL)
Civil liberties are rights in freedom that protect
an individual from the government of the nation
in which he resides.
Civil liberties include freedoms of expression and
belief, associational and organizational rights,
rule of law, and personal autonomy without
interference from the state.
How FH measures freedom?
FH checklist contains 10 questions about PR,
grouped under three headings:



electoral process,
political pluralism and partecipation,
functioning of government
and 15 questions about CL grouped under four
headings:




freedom of expression and belief,
associational and organizational rights,
rule of law,
personal autonomy and individual rights.
How FH measures freedom? II
For each of the 25 questions, a country can receive
from 0 to 4 points.
The points are added up for PR and CL separately
and then translated, in steps of 5 for PR and in 6 for
CL, into a score, where 1 is the best and 7 is the
worst.
In the final step, scores are combined and averaged
and then converted into a classification of the
country as
• FREE (F) = (1 - 2,5)
• PARTLY FREE (PF) = (3 - 5)
• NOT FREE (NF) = (5.5 - 7)
2006
Edition *
2005
Year(s) covered
PR
Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Angola
Antigua & Barbuda
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
2007
5
3
6
1
6
2
2
5
1
1
6
1
5
4
1
7
1
1
2
6
3
4
2
2
CL
5
3
5
1
5
2
2
4
1
1
5
1
5
4
1
6
1
2
2
5
3
3
2
2
2008
2006
Status
PF
PF
NF
F
NF
F
F
PF
F
F
NF
F
PF
PF
F
NF
F
F
F
NF
PF
PF
F
F
PR
5
3
6
1
6
2
2
5
1
1
6
1
5
4
1
7
1
1
2
6
3
3
2
2
CL
5
3
5
1
5
2
2
4
1
1
5
1
5
4
1
6
1
2
2
5
3
3
2
2
2009
2007
Status
PF
PF
NF
F
NF
F
F
PF
F
F
NF
F
PF
PF
F
NF
F
F
F
NF
PF
PF
F
F
PR
5
3
6
1
6
2
2
5
1
1
6
1
5
5
1
7
1
1
2
6
3
4
2
2
2008
CL
Status
PR
CL
Status
5
3
5
1
5
2
2
4
1
1
5
1
5
4
1
6
1
2
2
5
3
3
2
2
PF
PF
NF
F
NF
F
F
PF
F
F
NF
F
PF
PF
F
NF
F
F
F
NF
PF
PF
F
F
5
3
6
1
6
2
2
6
1
1
6
1
5
4
1
7
1
1
2
4
3
4
2
2
6
3
5
1
5
2
2
4
1
1
5
1
5
4
1
6
1
2
2
5
3
3
2
2
NF
PF
NF
F
NF
F
F
PF
F
F
NF
F
PF
PF
F
NF
F
F
F
PF
PF
PF
F
F
Polity
The polity project codes all those country which
were indipendent in 2002 with a population
greater then 500.000. It has a democracy and an
autocracy score
Its data are broadly used in order to face research
projects about democracy, peace and stability
across countries.
Democracy score
Each country has a level of democracy score that
goes from 0 to 10 based on scores for:




the competitiveness for the recruitment (2
points)
openess of executive recruitment (2 points)
constraints on chief executive (4 points)
competitiveness of political partecipation (3
points)
Autocracy score
The same system is valid also for the autocracy
score that goes from 0 to 10. Like the democracy,
also the autocracy is based on the same criteria
plus regulation of political partecipation. The
more one country is autocratic, the more points it
obtains.
Polity's Classification
The Polity conceptual scheme examines concomitant
qualities of democratic and autocratic authority in
governing institutions. The final classification, using the
combined scores, is divided into 3 main categories:

democracies between +7 and +10

inchoerent policies between -6 and +6 and

autocracies between -7 and -10
An example: Spain
Freedom House I
• Freedom House is an index pointing out freedom, not
democracy.
• Anyway, in 1997 it was introduced a definition of
electoral democracies.
• In order to belong to this category, a state must have
satisfied four criteria:
1. A competitive multiparty political system
2. Universal adult suffrage for all citizens
3. Contested elections- secret and secure ballot- no massive
voter fraud- representative results
4. Access of major political parties to the electorate.
Freedom House II
• Since 2007 the index had pointed out some
requirements for a state to be classified as an electoral
democracy: it must report a score of at least 7 points
out of 12 on the following three questions:
1. Is the head of government or other chief national
authority elected through free and fair elections?
2. Are the national legislative representatives elected
through free and fair elections?
3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair?
• In some cases it can happen that a state satisfies all the
requirements, but fails to fit with the four criteria.
Freedom House III
• This phenomenon was defined by Goertz
(2006) “concept- measure inconsistency”.
• In this unlikely cases points are adjusted in
order to match the designation preferred by
Freedom House.
• Anyway, when these situations occur, it is
considered better if a case satisfies the four
definition criteria rather than the three
questions.
Freedom House IV
• Freedom House data are often used by scholars to
provide a classification of regime types. Eighteen
different classification have been made up.
• These classifications follow two distinct criteria: 1)
translating PR scores into a dichotomy of regime
types 2) summing or averaging the combined PR
and CL scores.
• The thresholds for a regime to be considered
democratic are: 2 points according to 1) and 5.5
according to 2).
Polity I
• From Polity index don’t emerge necessary conditions
for democracy, that on the contrary is considered a
variable.
• Doorenspleet (2000, 2005) pointed out a sort of
“minimum conditions” of democracy, referred to
each Polity criterion that must be satisfied.
• In this way the types of regime don’t come from the
translation into type of a certain degree, but from a
systematic qualitative evaluation of indicators.
• The absence of voting rights evaluation criteria
pushed Doorenspleet to introduce a measure of
inclusiveness.
Polity II
• Scholars read Polity data in a slighter way than
Freedom House ones. They built up sixteen
interpretation types, both taking into account just
democracy scores and building up a combined
scale.
• Some scholars fixed the threshold to democracy
at six, other at seven.
• More in general, people using Polity data take the
score representing difference between
democracy and autocracy level.
Polity III
• In case of using the combined index, the
threshold for a country to be considered
democratic is very slack, going from minus two to
plus seven.
• According to these classifications, any importance
is given to the level zero as a wathershed
between fair and unfair electoral regimes.
• In any case, there are many differences on the
parameters about democratic level, according to
the purpose the scholar would achieve.
Measures of democratization in Africa
I
• The paper provides an empirical example of how
much a different interpretation of indexes could
affect the research outcomes.
• It is drawn from the work by Schlosser (2008)
that divided regime types in three different
groups:
1. Polyarchies
2. Praetorian regimes (with the presence of civil wars)
3. Authoritarian regimes
Measures of democratization in Africa
II
• To find out this classification, Schlosser
created a combination among some indexes’
outcomes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Freedom House PR and CL scores
Vanhanen’s democracy index
World Bank indicator for voice and accountability
Polity’ s democracy score
Indicator of gross human rights violations from
the Political Terror Scale
Measures of democratization in Africa
III
• In order to explain every regime, Schlosser shown the
correlation between democracy scores and six
variables, then reduced to two in order to underline
the differences between polyarchies and other regime
types.
• These variables are:
1. Percentage of population employed in agriculture (1999)
2. Losers accepting results from the polls
• The correlation is looked with relation to three
different indexes: FH Political Rights score, FH
combined score and Polity score. A different threshold
to democracy is taken for every index.
Different Outcomes I
Different Outcomes II
Different Outcomes III
Conclusions
• We have tried to present the main indexes for
measuring the quality of democracies:
Freedom House and Polity, showing the
variables taken into account to build up these
indexes
• Afterwards, we have shown how different
ways of using indexes, related with different
interpretations of scores, can lead to
unconsistent research outcomes.