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Dictatorship and
Democracy
. . . . an autocrat, whether a
nationalist strongman,
revolutionary hero, or
Communist apparatchik, . . .
Dobson, p. 2
Who
What
What
Conceptualization
Previous Efforts
Large-n
We
underscore
Easy to operationalize
Operationalization based on institutional characteristics >
knowing a country is a democracy provides information about
the institutions that exist in that country
(i.e., there is only one way of being democratic)
Recognizes that difference between Belgium and North Korea is
not merely of degree
These countries are distinctive political animals, not different
points along the same continuum
Polity IV
Conceptualization
Polity IV
Operationalization
1996
Polity IV
-10
0
-2
-4
-6
-6
-5
5
-10
10
Dictatorships Anocracies Democracies
!
!
But
Aggregating many indicators means that there are many ways to end up with the
same score > especially problematic for middle values
If one is to classify observations in a few categories, shouldnt it be better to classify
cases on the bases of explicitly observable, institutional characteristics? (e.g., whether
there are elections, legislatures, etc?)
Conceptualization
The idea is to measure respect for political and personal freedoms, rather
than political regimes themselves
Operationalization
Country experts code observations along two dimensions, each on a 7point scale:
Political rights measure whether citizens can participate in elections,
pluralism is tolerated, etc.
Civil liberties measure whether there is freedom of expression, people can
enjoy individual rights, the government is contained by the rule of law, etc
Scores are averaged, and countries are then classified as Free, Partly
Free, or Not Free
Evolution of FH scores
Scores try to capture many features at once, and the criteria employed is
unclear / might vary between coders
Furthermore,
Geddess
Competitive
Svoliks
Geddes 2003
Three
Military
Personalist
Single-party
But
(e.g., anocracies are regimes with a Polity score between -5 and 5, but there are
many ways to get a score in this range)
Levitsky
Limited
Dictatorships
Svolik
context
Time serial context
Context might be more nuanced than average score.
!
Presentations
Cross-sectional
context
Time serial context
Context might be more nuanced than average score.
Interchangeables
Influentials
Essentials
!
!
How