A critique of quantitative measures of the degree of democracy in Israel

Abstract

The question addressed in this study is: ‘How accurate and meaningful are quantitative measures of the degree of democracy in Israel?’ With the increasing use of such measures in studies of democracy, an answer to this question becomes increasingly important. The Freedom House and Polity IV measures of democracy in Israel contend that there is a very high level of democracy, but their characterization is contradicted sharply by the views of many scholars. In seeking to account for this contradiction, we will assess the accuracy and meaningfulness of the two quantitative measures. We find that both empirical and conceptual problems affect the utility of the measures. Empirical inaccuracies are suggested by three findings: the role in Israel's democracy of the largest minority group, the Israeli Arabs, is ignored or substantially discounted; the discrepancies between the two indices suggest that at least one of them is not capturing empirical reality accurately; and neither index seems very sensitive to democracy-related events in the country. The degree to which these empirical findings are indicators of inaccuracies is dependent upon the conceptualization of democracy. Conceptually, the indices differ from each other and from the concepts used by many others who examine Israeli democracy. Two conclusions are reached: the indices measure imperfectly what they call Israeli ‘democracy’. Furthermore, a prima facie look at the scores characterizing democracy in other countries suggests that the ‘democracy’ they measure in Israel is not the same as the ‘democracy’ they measure elsewhere. The implications are several: on the academic side, the accuracy of general knowledge developed using these measures becomes questionable. On the practical side, the indices contribute little to knowledge that may be applied to overcoming the complex problems democracy in Israel is facing or the building of democracy in other countries of the Middle East. Thus, their accuracy and meaningfulness is limited.