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Key Text Map Making and Analysis of the Main International Initiatives on Developing Indicators on Democracy and Good Governance

Author: T Landman and J Häusermann
Date: 2003
Size: 92 pages (442 KB)

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Summary

Democracy, human rights and good governance can be measured in many different ways, and this is reflected in the wide variety of initiatives that have developed such indicators. This project for the Statistical Office of the European Commission collates and evaluates existing initiatives. It also makes recommendations for the development of more efficient measurement tools.

More than 170 initiatives were identified as having contributed significantly to the measurement of democracy, human rights and good governance. Of these, 45 have developed methodologies or indicators that have wide geographical and temporal coverage, are used frequently, or are regarded as best practice. It was found that measurement is inextricably linked with conceptual definition: thus, different definitions lead to different measures. While international policy documents tend to treat the three concepts as equivalent, this should be avoided because they have exclusive characteristics as well as shared elements. In general, there is considerable consensus on the definition of ‘human rights’, but views diverge on the meaning and content of ‘democracy’ and ‘good governance’. The development of agreed and meaningful cross-national and time-series indicators requires a clear conceptual framework that disentangles the three ideas.

A fair amount of progress has been made in developing indicators across all three areas, with a recent focus on the production of more robust measures, transparency and a more scientific approach, particularly in the area of human rights. Yet a number of problems remain:

There is poor awareness about credible primary source material, particularly in measuring human rights and good governance. This has led to the re-use of data produced for other purposes and over-reliance on a few sources.
There is a failure to recognise the purpose of indicators, which has resulted in their inappropriate use on occasions.
There are communication problems between intergovernmental organisations, non-governmental organisations and academics, as well as missing links between political science, law, economics and statistics.
The desire to rank countries conflicts with the difficulty of aggregating different dimensions into composite indices. If the necessary data do not exist, results may be inaccurate.
There is a lack of source data and indicators in key areas including economic, social and cultural rights, the rule of law, access to justice and the participation of civil society.

The project’s main recommendation is the need for conceptual clarity. For progress to be made, the concepts and their component parts must be identified and defined, and the purpose of the measurement clarified. In addition:

New indicators should be produced to address the gaps identified. It must be clear what type of data is required, and specific sources should be developed in a transparent way to measure each component.
Human rights measurement should be rooted in international law and the juridical interpretation of state obligations and rights.
As development indicators provide only a partial picture of the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, they need to be complemented with rights-specific indicators.
The European Commission should invest in developing human rights indicators, including a core set to measure how a human rights approach can contribute to poverty reduction and sustainable development.
It should add links to the initiatives contained in the project database, and/or merge the data sets to provide one global set of measures covering the three concepts.

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Source: Landman, T. and Häusermann, J., 2003, ‘Map making and analysis of the main international initiatives on developing indicators on democracy and good governance’, University of Essex, Human Rights Centre, Report for the Statistical Office of the Commission of the European Communities (EUROSTAT).
Author: Julia Häusermann , jhausermann@pop3.poptel.org.uk