Polyarchy Contestation Scale Adrian Wyszyński Comparative Politics 12/13

Polyarchy Contestation Scale Michael Coppedge and Wolfgang H. Reinicke have developed a scale based on Robert Dahl's concept of polyarchy. The scale measures the degree to which national political systems meet the minimum requirements for political democracy, where real-world "democracies" rather than abstract ideals are the standard. The Polyarchy and Contestation Scales measure the level of the contestation dimension of polyarchy in independent states. The Polyarchy Scale is constructed from indicators of freedom of expression, freedom of organization, media pluralism, and the holding of fair elections. The scale is: 1) well grounded in democratic theory, 2) world-wide in scope, 3) demonstrably valid, 4) solves problems of weighting indicators 5) easy to interpret and replicate.

Polyarchy The term "polyarchy" was originally coined in Dahl and Lindblom (1953), but was developed most fully in Dahl (1971). Polyarchy is defined as the set of institutional arrangements that permits public opposition and establishes the right to participate in politics. In these two respects - public contestation and inclusiveness - polyarchy is similar to the concept of democracy, so it is important to clarify at the outset the various ways in which polyarchy differs from some other conceptions of democracy. The data for 1985 are coded by Michael Coppedge and Wolfgang Reinicke, while the data for 2000 were coded by graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Notre Dame.

Codebook Suff – Suffrage Fairelt – Fair Elections Freorg – Freedom of Organization Frext – Freedom of Expression Altinf – Alternative Sources of Information Poly – The sum of Fairelt, Freorg, Frexp and Altinf minus 4 Poly score (from 0 to 10) where: Score = 0 Perfect Scale Type (1 1 1 1): 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. Score = 10 Perfect Scale Type (3 4 3 4): 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.

Country code suff85 fairelt85 freorg85 frexp85 altinf85 fairelt00 freorg00 frexp00 altinf00 poly85 poly00 cont85 cont 00 Azerbaijan aze . 2 3 5 4 Bulgaria bul 1 10 6 Germany ger 9 Greece grc 7 Hungary hun 8 Italy ita