Democracy Ranking

Media Coverage:
(selective)
- The Jerusalem Post (Israel), Jan. 2010
- David F.J. Campbell in WNYC Radio (U.S.),
Sep. 2009

Quick Links:
- Democracy Ranking 2008/2009
- Method and Ranking Outcome 2008
- The Basic Concept for the Ranking

Welcome to "The Democracy Ranking of the Quality of Democracy"

- Vision
- Mission Statement
- Objectives

Vision

The Democracy Ranking is interested in contributing to the global enhancement of the Quality of Democracy in a world-wide understanding and approach.

Conceptual formula:

Quality of
Democracy =

(freedom & other
characteristics of the
political system) &
(performance of the
non-political dimensions)

Source: Democracy Ranking
(Campbell, 2008).

Dimensional structure & weights:

---Politics (50%)
---Gender (10%)
---Economy (10%)
---Knowledge (10%)
---Health (10%)
---Environment (10%)

Source: Democracy Ranking
(Campbell and Sükösd, 2002).

Mission Statement

The Democracy Ranking is an annual ranking of all democracies (country-based democracies) in the world by focusing on the Quality of Democracy in an international perspective. The Democracy Ranking publishes the ranking scores and displays ranking score increases or decreases over time. The Democracy Ranking is a ranking of the Quality of Democracy in the sense that the ranking scores should reflect a ranking of democracies according to their differing qualities; and the Democracy Ranking is a ranking for the Quality of Democracy, because it wants to contribute conceptually to how democracy quality may be measured as well as wants to support the awareness how important democracy quality is for the further development, reform and enhancement of democracies.

The ranking designs a multidimensional conceptual approach, integrating the political and non-political dimensions of society, and is furthermore carried by a broader theoretical understanding of democracy. Conceptual references are the "Feasibility Study for a Quality Ranking of Democracies" (edited by Campbell and Sükösd, 2002) and "The Basic Concept for the Democracy Ranking of the Quality of Democracy" (Campbell, 2008).

The Democracy Ranking applies the following conceptual formula:
Quality of Democracy = (freedom & other characteristics of the political system) & (performance of the non-political dimensions). The non-political dimensions are: gender, economy, knowledge, health, and the environment.

In empirical terms the ranking is indicator-based, covering the last available years of data, and using indicators that are published by renowned and acknowledged national and international organizations (for example public institutions and non-governmental organizations). Thus the ranking displays empirical results. Only those countries are covered by the Democracy Ranking that are classified by Freedom House as "free" or at least as "partly free" (and that have a population of one million or more). Interested in a maximum of transparency, the ranking scores for all dimensions and for the transformed data of all indicators are posted to our website. In the archive, the previous ranking scores also are listed. The Democracy Ranking encourages feedback from all communities and is open for learning and improving conceptually and methodically.

Objectives

The objectives of the Democracy Ranking are: (1) supporting democracy awareness and the awareness of the need for improving the quality of democracy; (2) contributing to processes of a self-reflexive discussion and communication about democracy; (3) delivering empirical data for comparatively ranking democracies in a global format; (4) encouraging ongoing reforms, improvements and innovations of democracy for a further enhancement of the quality of democracy; (5) emphasizing the need for quality assurance and quality development of democracies and for systematic evaluations of democracy; (6) underscoring that for the development of the international community of countries the "dimension of democracy" is just as important as the other dimensions, such as the economy, knowledge, health and the environment; (7) adding to our theoretical and conceptual understanding of democracy also the quality of democracy and the advancement of democracies; (8) offering crucial input for a "Global Democracy Award".