Draft:Democracy Barometer

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freedom
  • individual liberties
  • rule of law
  • public sphere
control
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equality
  • transparency
  • participation
  • representation

The Democracy Barometer is an index aiming to measure the quality of democracy across countries using indicators grouped under the "principles" of freedom, control and equality, each with three "functions". Methodologically, it aims to use many indicators rather than a single expert score. Its codebook says the project collected about 300 possible indicators and selected about 98 for the index, aiming for a transparent, theory-driven measurement strategy.

The latest version (7, dated 2020) was developed by the Centre for Democracy Aarau (ZDA) and the Department of Political Science (IPZ) at the University of Zurich (UZH) for comparative political research and provides downloadable data, codebooks, and documentation.[1] As of April 2026, this latest version of the Democracy Barometer dataset covers 53 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017. The countries and territories covered are:[2]

The Democracy Barometer was developed by Daniel Bochsler, back then a researcher at the University of Zurich and the Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau (ZDA), in collaboration with Wolfgang Merkel of the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB)[3] a joint project between the WZB and ZDA (2009–13, 20013–17),[3] as a split-off from the project Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR).[4] Since 2018, the Centre for Democracy Aarau (ZDA) and the Department of Political Science (IPZ) at the University of Zurich (UZH) are responsible for the Democracy Barometer.

Critique

The Democracy Barometer attempts to make the quality differences of democracy between established democracies more measurable. However, its methodology, validity and accuracy are often strongly questioned. A.o. as Switzerland, a country known for its developed direct democracy, performs worse than, for example, the USA.[5][6] This is attributed to insufficiently developed methodologies and assessment criteria.[7][8][9]

The basic idea behind the “Democracy Barometer” is highly questionable. The assumption that the quality of democratic systems of government can be determined using a clear definition of democracy and that countries can be compared through a one-dimensional ranking corresponds neither to the tradition of democratic theory nor to the current state of academic discussion on measuring the quality of democracy.

References

(see also reviews, articles in external links below)

  1. democracybarometer.org, web of Democracy Barometer
  2. Data and Documentation on democracybarometer.org
  3. (de) Demokratiebarometer (ADF): Forschungsprojekt des NCCR Democracy zur Demokratie in der Wirtschaftskrise und Demokratisierungsprozessen (Daniel Bochsler und Wolfgang Merkel [WZB]). Laufzeit: 10/2013–09/2017. and Demokratiebarometer (ADF): Forschungsprojekt des NCCR Democracy zur Messung der Qualität von Demokratie in etablierten Demokratien (Daniel Bochsler und Wolfgang Merkel [WZB]). Laufzeit: 10/2009–09/2013. p. 12 in Jahresbericht ZDA 2013, March 2014 and p. 7, 8 in Jahresbericht ZDA 2011, January 2012, on zdaarau.ch,
  4. NCCR Democracy (2005–2017), NCCR Directors: Hanspeter Kriesi (2005–2012), Daniel Kübler (2012–2017), on the snf.ch web
  5. (de) http://www.nccr-democracy.uzh.ch/forschung/module5/barometer/demokratiebarometer
  6. (de) Schweizer Demokratie nur graues Mittelmass? (Swiss democracy just gray mediocrity?) srf.ch, 27 January 2011
  7. Joachim Blatter, University of Lucerne, NZZ 22 February 2011 (see external links below)
  8. Martin Senti, NZZ 28 January 2011 (see External links below)
  9. (de) Schabernak mit Demokratieindizes ...Es ist offensichtlich, dass das Verfahren des Demokratiebarometers so undurchsichtig ist, so willkürlich und inhaltlich so wenig abgestützt, dass niemand weiss, was hier eigentlich gemessen wird... (Mischief with democracy indices ...It is obvious that the methodology of the Democracy Barometer is so opaque, so arbitrary, and so poorly supported by content that nobody knows what is actually being measured here...), europa-magazin.ch 2/2011

Reviews of Democracy Barometer

Articles on Democracy Barometer