Explaining Bogaards' "Where to draw the line? From degree to dichotomy in measures of democracy"

While much effort is put into the measurement of democracy with the use of continuous and dichotomous measures, and there has been plentiful discussion about the merits of each, the task of 'drawing the line' at which a non-democratic state becomes democratic has proven difficult, and the literature does not appear to demonstrate much in the way of sound justification for the ways in which scholars draw these lines. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the difficulty of line-drawing, and make some pointers as to how it may be done in a better way.

Bogaards examines the use of Freedom House and Polity scores by scholars classifying regimes, and briefly explains how both systems work. Some examples are provided of the different ways the scores are used, and it is acknowledged that the majority of the time, little or no explanation is given for the placement of thresholds by those who set them. Inconsistencies are noted between Freedom House classifications of regimes and some alternative classifications. While it is noted that users of Polity scores seem to explain their thresholds more often, it is apparent there are still many ways in which scholars will place their limits on different classifications of regimes.

The article concludes with some offerings of advice for those wishing to dichotomise regimes. Some examples of more successful classification are mentioned, but the article does not provide a solution to the problem it raises.

This article perhaps does not at this stage mean a lot for me; I am in no way an expert in the measurement and classification of regimes. It does however signal to me that great care must be taken in the classification of regimes, should that be a task I undertake. I wonder if there is a possibility for a purpose-built tool for regime classification to be developed to classify regimes in a more standard and repeatable way than previously seen.

This was a tough article for me - regimes and the classification of them is an uncharted territory for me. I welcome your thoughts - does this article speak to you in a different way? Have I missed something obvious? Are you able to offer a better explanation of what's going on here?

If you've got this far, thanks for coming along, I hope this made some sense.

Source:

Matthijs Bogaards (2012) Where to draw the line? From degree to dichotomy in measures of
democracy, Democratization, 19:4, 690-712, DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2011.613563