Cross-National Measures of Political Democracy

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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.