Democracy Barometer. Methodology. Version 4.

Abstract

Based on our theoretical concept of democracy, it is feasible to measure a country’s quality of democracy for a given point in time. Nevertheless, the quality of the whole endeavor is not only the result of an adequate theoretical concept but equally depends on the quality of the measurement itself (Bollen 1990). As Blalock (1982: 31) puts it: “If either process [conceptualization or measurement] lags too far behind the other, we shall find ourselves stymied.”