Cross-National Measures of Political Democracy

这项拟议的研究将构建各国政治民主年度国家指标的有价值的数据集；使用社会学中被认为是“最先进”的统计建模方法，它将分析各种测量中存在系统性偏见和随机“噪音”的程度，试图隐藏系统性偏见的来源（例如，国家的政治影响，或者可能是其规模），然后纠正这种偏见的原始数据。这项工作所承诺的对不同国家的政治民主进行更充分衡量的进展，将有利于对民主化与经济和社会不平等以及经济增长和发展之间关系的理论基础研究。同样的进展将制定重要的衡量标准，并加强目前作为继续或恢复对外援助和贸易关系的条件而规定的人权决定的实质内容。PI是一位社会学家，因为他之前在这一领域的工作贡献以及他在使用方法时的统计和方法技巧而闻名。

This proposed research will construct a valuable data set of annual national indicators of political democracy across nations; and using statistical modeling methods considered 'state-of-the-art' in sociology, it will analyze the degree to which systematic bias and random 'noise' are present in the various measures, attempt to undercover the sources of systematic bias (e.g., political influence of the country, or perhaps its size) and then correct the original data for such bias. Advances toward a more adequate measurement of political democracy across very different nations that are promised by this work would benefit theoretically grounded studies of the relationship between democratization and economic and social inequality, as well as economic growth and development. The same advances would set important measurement standards and enhance the very substance of human rights determinations currently mandated as a condition of continuing or renewing both foreign aid and trade relationships. The PI is a sociologist well known both for his previous contributions to work in this area and for his statistical and methodological skills with the methods to be used.