Abstract: In this paper we make a comparative assessment of five leading indices of
democracy: Freedom House, Polity, Vanhanen, Alvarez et al., and Reich. We show
that although these indices are strongly correlated at the aggregate level, there are
large differences among them at different levels of the democracy scale. Hence, it is
of paramount importance to be able to make a well-founded choice among them. For
this purpose we propose a general conceptual and methodological standard according
to which the alternative indices should be evaluated. According to this standard,
Polity and Freedom House outperforms its rivals. In an external assessment, we show
that differences between these two leading indices cannot be explained in terms of
region, religion or colonial background, but in part reflects the type of non-democratic
regime. When compared against an independent yardstick in a sample of 37 country
years with extremely large discrepancies between Polity and Freedom House, the
former outperforms the latter, although the best fit appears when the two are
averaged.
Convention