Abstract
Is there a Decline of Democracy? Democracy measurement provides the basis for answering this question. However, there are different measurement tools based on different meanings of democracy that have been shown to vary in their concept validity. Therefore, it is relevant to examine whether the results of the different measurement tools converge or diverge with respect to a potential decline of democracy. Smolka (2021) finds a decline of democracy for new and old EU states based on standardized data from the Democracy Barometer. A re-analysis using the original data of the Democracy Barometer and the Democracy Matrix can hardly replicate these results. A comparison of further measurements shows that the instruments diverge rather than converge. I therefore conclude with some thoughts on overcoming the selection problem that arises in light of these contrasts.
Highlights
Gibt es zwischen 2004 und 2016 einen Rückgang der Demokratiequalität in der EU? Die Relevanz der Datenauswahl: eine Replikationsstudie von Smolka (2021) und ein Vergleich von Demokratiemessungen
When we apply the Erdmann-Smolka classification rule to the Democracy Matrix (DeMaX) data,10 we find slightly more cases of decline of democracy (28) over all periods than Smolka (25) did
Since the Electoral Democracy Index (EDI) is the core democracy index of Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem) and the DeMaX is a customized version of V-Dem, they show a similar trend that only varies regarding the intensity, which is why we describe them together
Summary
Czech Rep. 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 -1 0 0 -1 1 1 1 improvement 14 4 5 7 4 3 21 15 0 5 2 0 3 11 10 residual. The trends are reversed : Whereas the analysis of the Smolka data showed a surplus of improvements in the first period followed by higher numbers of declines in the subsequent periods, the original data demonstrate that declines outnumber improvements of democracy by far in the first period, whereas the trend changes and becomes positive in the second period. This is somewhat surprising, since both analyses were carried out on the same dataset, which is why it stands to reason that Smolka’s (2021) standardization method has an enormous impact on the results. By the time the manuscript was completed, the author could not find any explanation for why Smolka has fewer missing cases in her analysis than the original dataset of the democracy barometer
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