Ultimate question: What type of regimes are there in the world today?
Classes:
- Failed state. Criteria:
- No effective government with an inability to provide security/control.
- Loss of territorial control.
- Inability to provide public services.
- Inability to participate in the international community.
- Other Regimes. Types:
- Democracy
- Competitive Authoritarianism
- Dictatorship
- Elections - 50%
- Universal suffrage
- Effective opposition
- Right to stand for election
- Free from intimidation
- Regularly held
- Government - 35%
- Separation of powers - Executive, Legislature, Judiciary.
- Policy makers are democratically elected
- Government accountability (bribery, corruption)
- Transparency
- Size of the winning coalition
- Political Freedoms - 15%
- Media freedom
- Freedom of political expression
Research texts used
- Alvarez, M. Classifying Political Regimes- Studies in Comparative International Development. Summer 1996. Vol. 31 No.2. 3-36.
- Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism- Journal of Democracy. 13 (2): 51-65
I like how this index is to the point and easy to follow, but perhaps the question is not perfectly suited as the criteria only leaves room for the three major regime types leaving room for others that do not fall into fully into any of the main distinctions, I'll test it on a couple of countries and see how I go though - could be wrong!
ReplyDeleteGood question! It seems though that this index already assumes the answer to it - there are failed states, authoritarian regimes, competitive authoritarian regimes, and democracies, according to you. Why not avoid the labels and simply extract the types of regimes from the final distribution of characteristics? (E.g., some regimes, for example, will have universal suffrage and government accountability but no free media, etc.).
ReplyDeleteAlso, it is not clear why some of these things are grouped together. Why put "democratically elected government officials" under "government" rather than "elections"? Wouldn't you immediately get a "yes" answer to the former question if you get a "yes" answer to the latter one?
Really clear and easy to follow, but it does appear to leave little room for states that may have mixed characteristics; maybe there should be wider divisions amongst each of the classes?
ReplyDeleteThe focus question is easy to understand and relates to the questions that follow. We are trying to class countries of the world into regimes that are present in the world today. It covers a lot of criteria to categorize a state into the separate regime types as elections, effective/responsible govt and political freedoms all relate to a country being a democracy or certain type of dictatorship.
ReplyDeleteI like the basic idea of this system, but I miss some sort of explanation of how you have reached your division into the three types of states... You do not at any point explain why you have already defined those categories. You end up answering your own question even before you conduct a test of the system because we already now that a country will fall into one of the given categories. So maybe you should consider revising your focus question?
ReplyDeleteCamilla Klyvoe
I really like this system. Its clear and too the point. So easy to follow! I like how there is a percentage breakdown into how much each section is worth overall. However as i think others have mentioned, it feels like there needs to be more of an explanation into why and how you came to the decision to plot each section like you did. Also it seems that you answer the focus question right after you state it.
ReplyDelete