Double Take: A Reexamination of Democracy and Autocracy in Modern Polities

The Polity data are widely used to explore the causes and consequences of democratic authority patterns. These data often have been used uncritically. The authors explore some of the theoretical and empirical characteristics of these data. They show how the analytical composition of the well-known d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	The Journal of conflict resolution 1997-06, Vol.41 (3), p.361-383
Main Authors:	Gleditsch, Kristian S., Ward, Michael D.
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Autocracy Citizen Participation Competitiveness CONCEPT OF AUTHORITY Conflict resolution Datasets Decision making Definitions Democracy Democratic authority DEMOCRATIC PROCESS AND INSTITUTIONS Democratization DOMINATION Executive branch Federal government Governance Individualized Instruction Institutionalization PEACE, PEACE MOVEMENT, PEACE GROUPS Political behavior Political science Political systems Politics Polities Recruitment Statistical variance THEORY BUILDING OR THEORETICAL APPROACH War
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Summary:	The Polity data are widely used to explore the causes and consequences of democratic authority patterns. These data often have been used uncritically. The authors explore some of the theoretical and empirical characteristics of these data. They show how the analytical composition of the well-known democracy and autocracy scores is not upheld by an empirical analysis of the component measurements and demonstrate that democracy, as measured by the Polity indicators, is fundamentally a reflection of decisional constraints on the chief executive. The recruitment and participation dimensions are shown to be empirically extraneous despite their centrality in democratic theory. The authors conclude that it is a mistake to overlook the categorical nature of these data and that an analysis of the constituent authority patterns is likely to be fruitful for the democratic peace and democratization literature.
ISSN:	0022-0027 1552-8766