assessing the quality of quality measures of democracy: a theoretical framework and its empirical application
assessing the quality of quality measures of democracy: a theoretical framework and its empirical application
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评估民主质量衡量标准的质量：理论框架及其实证应用
DOI：
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发表时间：
2015
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Wiebke Breustedt
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
S. Pickel;T. Stark;Wiebke Breustedt
近几十年来，比较政治学家以极快的速度发展出新的衡量民主政体质量的方法。这些指数已被广泛应用于评估跨国民主的质量，并检验有关其原因和影响的理论的普遍性。然而，民主的质量是一个抽象和有争议的概念，这一事实危及了这些推论的有效性。为了解决这种可能性，构建衡量民主质量指数的研究人员以及应用这些指数的研究人员应该批判性地检查指数的质量。由于缺乏一个既适合评估有争议的概念又包括明确的编码规则以便直接适用的标准化框架，本文试图填补这一空白。对可持续治理指标、全球民主排名和民主晴雨表的评估证明了我们的框架的应用。评估结果表明，该框架是一个实用的工具，有助于评估指标的概念基础、有效性、可靠性和可复制性。此外，该方法还可用于比较指标的质量。
Over recent decades, comparative political scientists have developed new measures at a rate of knots that evaluate the quality of democratic regimes. These indices have been broadly applied to assess the quality of democracy cross-nationally and to test the generalisability of theories regarding its causes and effects. However, the validity of these inferences is jeopardised by the fact that the quality of democracy is an abstract and contested concept. In order to address this eventuality, researchers constructing indices measuring the quality of democracy as well as researchers applying these indices should critically examine the quality of the indices. Owing to the absence of a standardised framework that is both suitable for the evaluation of contested concepts and that includes explicit coding rules so as to be directly applicable, this article seeks to fill this gap. The application of our framework is demonstrated by an evaluation of the Sustainable Governance Indicators, the Global Democracy Ranking and the Democracy Barometer. As indicated by our evaluation, the framework is a practical tool that helps to assess the conceptual foundation, validity, reliability and replicability of indices. In addition, it can be used to study the quality of indices in a comparable manner.