M. Coppedge and W. H. Reinicke. "Measuring Polyarchy". In: Studies in Comparative International Development 25.1 (1990), pp. 51-72. DOI: 10.1007/Bf02716905. Data available at http://www3.nd.edu/~mcoppedg/crd/datacrd.htm. The codebook below is copied from that website.
polyarchy
polyarchy_pmmAn object of class tbl_df (inherits from tbl, data.frame) with 363 rows and 14 columns.
An object of class tbl_df (inherits from tbl, data.frame) with 353 rows and 7 columns.
M. Coppedge and W. H. Reinicke. "Measuring Polyarchy". In: Studies in Comparative International Development 25.1 (1990), pp. 51-72. DOI: 10.1007/Bf02716905.
The Polyarchy Scale and the Contestation Scale are quasi-Guttman scales using polytomous items.
The Contestation Scale is a less precise but more reliable version of the Polyarchy Scale.
For that scale, there were two coders--Coppedge and Reinicke. A reliability check was later performed by Anna Papavlachopoulou. Beginning in 2003, Coppedge had the undergraduate students in his quantitative methods course replicate the coding for all countries as of July 1, 2000.
In 2003, 11 students coded 60 randomly-selected countries. In 2004, 15 students coded 85 countries. In 2005, 15 students coded the remaining 47 countries (and 3 countries repeated from 2003). Each year, five countries were coded by every student and these initial codes discussed, and sometimes revised, before coding the rest.
In 2003 and 2004, the rest of the countries were each coded by 3 students each. In 2005, the rest of the countries were coded by 5 students each. Because some of the ratings were based on weak agreement, in 2006 nine graduate students were asked to code them, and others from 2000, independently. Their ratings have been pooled with those of the undergraduate coders and the scalogram analysis repeated. This resulted in modified ratings for 21 countries (11 percent): 5 becoming less polyarchic, 16 more polyarchic.
The data posted here are the revised data. The earlier ratings are available on request. For the 1985 data, multiple sources of information were used. For the 2000 data, all coders consulted only the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2001 as their source of information. This information is available on line at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/.
Every year, 82-86 percent of their ratings were in agreement. This is about the same level of reliability that Reinicke and Coppedge reported in 1990. For the data presented here, however, Coppedge selected the modal rating for each country on each variable and repeated the scalogram analysis.
Because some different scale types were found in 1985 and 2000, Coppedge decided to combine categories 4 and 5, and 8 and 9, in order to produce a more reliable scale, the Contestation scale. This scale ranges from 9 (greatest contestation) to 1 (least contestation). To convert the old scale into the new one, if old<=5, new=9-old; if 5<old<9, new=10-old; if old>=9, new=11-old.
Note that the new coding corrects the confusing convention of the Polyarchy Scale of having the lowest score represent the most democratic level. Categories are combined in the aggregated scale only, not in the component variables. This increases reliability while minimizing the loss of information. There is still a one-to-one correspondence between scale scores and the brief descriptions of the scale types, although types 2 and 5 build in a greater variety of ways to attain those scores.The coefficient of reproducibility for the 2000 Contestation scale (allowing for combined ranks) is .950. Coefficient alpha for its four variables is .927.
Ratings are based on actual practice rather than formal constitutional provisions.
When there is regional diversity in the regime, pay attention only to the largest, most populous, and most politically important region(s) of the country.
Read the coding criteria carefully and refer to them often to make sure you are applying them faithfully.
The country name in the original dataset. Note "Western Sahara" has been changed to "Morocco (Western Sahara)"
The alphanumeric country code in the original dataset.
Media pluralism.
1 Alternative sources of information exist and are protected by law. If there is significant government ownership of the media, they are effectively controlled by truly independent or multi-party bodies.
2 Alternative sources of information are widely available but government versions are presented in preferential fashion. This may be the result of partiality in and greater availability of government-controlled media; selective closure, punishment, harassment, or censorship of dissident reporters, publishers, or broadcasters; or mild self-censorship resulting from any of these.
3 The government or ruling party dominates the diffusion of information to such a degree that alternative sources exist only for nonpolitical issues, for short periods of time, or for small segments of the population. The media are either mostly controlled directly by the government or party or restricted by routine prior censorship, near-certain punishment of dissident reporters, publishers, and broadcasters, or pervasive self-censorship. Foreign media or the Internet may be available to a small segment of the population without restrictions.
4 There is no public alternative to official information. All sources of information are official organs or completely subservient private sources. The media are considered instruments of indoctrination. Foreign publications and the Internet are usually unavailable or censored, and foreign broadcasts may be jammed.
Fair elections.
1 The most important effective heads of the government are elected, and national elections take place without significant or routine fraud or coercion, or with incidents of fraud or coercion that are likely to be punished.
2 The most important effective heads of the government are elected, but national elections have significant fraud or coercion that goes unpunished, such as widespread voter intimidation or assassination of candidates, whether it changes the winner of the election or merely alters the margin of victory.
3 No meaningful elections: i.e., elections without choice of candidates or parties, or no elections at all.
Freedom of organization.
1 Some trade union or interest groups may be harassed or banned but there are no restrictions on purely political organization for parties that have not previously committed mass murder. Permits may be required but are not used to limit opposition activities.
2 Some political parties that have not committed mass murder are banned and trade unions or interest groups are harassed or banned, but membership in some alternatives to official organizations is permitted. Permits may be required and are used to limit opposition activities.
3 The only relatively independent organizations that are allowed to exist are nonpolitical.
4 No independent organizations are allowed. All organizations are banned or controlled by the government or the party.
Freedom of expression.
1 Citizens express their views on all topics without fear of punishment.
2 Dissent is discouraged, whether by informal pressure or by systematic censorship, but control is incomplete. The extent of control may range from selective punishment of dissidents on a limited number of issues to a situation in which only determined critics manage to make themselves heard, yet they sometimes can sway public opinion. There is some freedom of private discussion.
3 All open dissent is forbidden and effectively suppressed, though a few citizens may express dissent publicly in covert ways. Citizens are wary of criticizing the government even privately.
Polyarchy scale. Superceded by Contestation scale.
Contestation scale.
9 pattern = 1111 Meaningful fair elections are held, there is full freedom for political organization and expression, and there is no preferential presentation of official views in the media.
8 pattern = 1112 Meaningful fair elections are held and there is full freedom for political organization and expression, but there is preferential presentation of official views in the media.
7 pattern = 1122 Meaningful fair elections are held and there is full freedom for political organization, but some public dissent is suppressed and there is preferential presentation of official views in the media.
6 pattern = 1222 Meaningful fair elections are held, but some independent political organizations are banned, some public dissent is suppressed, and there is preferential presentation of official views in the media.
5 pattern = 2222 Elections are marred by fraud or coercion, some independent political organizations are banned, some public dissent is suppressed, and there is preferential presentation of official views in the media.
4 patterns = 3222, 2223, 3223, or 3322 Like score 5 except that there is less contestation in one or two of the following respects: no meaningful elections are held, only nonpolitical organizations are allowed to be independent, or alternatives to the official media are very limited.
3 pattern = 3323 No meaningful elections are held, only nonpolitical organizations are allowed to be independent, some public dissent is suppressed, and alternatives to the official media are very limited.
2 patterns = 3423, 3333, 3424, 3433, or 3334 Like score 3 except that there is less contestation in one or two of the following respects: all organizations are banned or controlled by the government or official party, all public dissent is suppressed, or there is no public alternative to official information.
1 pattern= 3434 No meaningful elections are held, all organizations are banned or controlled by the government or official party, all public dissent is suppressed, and there is no public alternative to official information.
Extent of suffrage (1985 only).
The name of the country in the Gleditsch-Ward system of states, or the official name of the entity (for non-sovereign entities and states not in the Gleditsch and Ward system of states) or else a common name for disputed cases that do not have an official name (e.g., Western Sahara, Hyderabad). The Gleditsch and Ward scheme sometimes indicates the common name of the country and (in parentheses) the name of an earlier incarnation of the state: thus, they have Germany (Prussia), Russia (Soviet Union), Madagascar (Malagasy), etc. For details, see Gleditsch, Kristian S. & Michael D. Ward. 1999. "Interstate System Membership: A Revised List of the Independent States since 1816." International Interactions 25: 393-413. The list can be found at http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~ksg/statelist.html.
Gleditsch and Ward's numeric country code, from the Gleditsch and Ward list of independent states.
The Correlates of War numeric country code, 2016 version. This differs from Gleditsch and Ward's numeric country code in a few cases. See http://www.correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/state-system-membership for the full list.
Whether the state is "in system" (that is, is
independent and sovereign), according to Gleditsch and Ward, for this
particular date. Matches at the end of the year; so, for example South
Vietnam 1975 is FALSE because, according to Gleditsch and Ward, the
country ended on April 1975 (being absorbed by North Vietnam). It is also
TRUE for dates beyond 2012 for countries that did not end by then, depsite
the fact that the Gleditsch and Ward list has not been updated since.
The polyarchy_pmm version of this data is taken from D. Pemstein, S. A. Meserve, and J. Melton. Replication data for: Democratic Compromise: A Latent Variable Analysis of Ten Measures of Regime Type. 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1902.1/PMM. The
original dataset is found in polyarchy. It only contains a reversed
version of the poly variable in the original polyarchy dataset (higher
values being more democratic). 22 country-years differ between PMM's
replication data and the original Polyarchy dataset (Coppedge and Reinicke
1990), and four are missing. These seem to be due to simple transcription
errors. See the vignette for more details.
Other democracy:
LIED,
PIPE,
REIGN,
anckar,
anrr,
arat_pmm,
blm,
bmr,
bnr,
bollen_pmm,
bti,
doorenspleet,
download_fh_electoral(),
download_fh_full(),
download_fh(),
download_wgi_voice_and_accountability(),
eiu,
extended_uds,
fh_pmm,
gwf_all,
hadenius_pmm,
kailitz,
magaloni,
mainwaring,
munck_pmm,
pacl_update,
pacl,
peps,
pitf,
polityIV,
polity_pmm,
polyarchy_dimensions,
prc_gasiorowski,
svmdi,
svolik_regime,
uds_2014,
ulfelder,
utip,
vanhanen,
vdem_simple,
wahman_teorell_hadenius
Other polyarchy:
polyarchy_dimensions