PIERCARLO BONETTI

HISTORY(1960s today)

• Polity 1 (Robert Ted Gurr)

• Polity 3 [1994] (Robert Ted Gurr + Nils Petter Gleditsch)

• Polity 98 [1998] (Ted Gurr + Political instability task force of the United States)

• Polity 4 (prof. Monty G.Marshall + political instability task force of the U.S. + centre for systemic peace).

PURPOSE

It ranks the quality of institutions and, more broadly of 166 regimes from 1800 till nowadays. (annually updated).

UNIQUENESS OF THE METHOD• The most widely used data resource for studying regimes.

• It analyzes concomitant qualities of democratic and autocratic authorities.

• It captures contemporaneously all kinds of regimes on a 21-points scale measuring the key qualities of:

- Executive recruitment.

- Constraint on executive dominance.

- Political competition.

RESULTS

It produces a classification of all analyzed countries in 3 main categories:

1. -10 to -6 AUTOCRACIES2. -5 to +5 ANOCRACIES3. +6 to +10 DEMOCRACIES

CRITICS

• Criteria identifying democracy are said to be misleadingly too narrow.

• It doesn’t take into account measure of civil liberties and human rights.