Handbook on Democracy Assessment

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The IDEA State of Democracy project has developed a comprehensive methodological tool that the citizens of all democracies in the world can use to assess the functioning of their own democratic systems. The assessments are aimed at raising public awareness, sparking discussions and helping identify areas for reform. The project does not place countries in a ranking order, but rather focuses on progress or setbacks. The methodology was tested in eight pilot countries. In 2002, The International IDEA Handbook on Democracy Assessment, was published by Kluwer Law International. The Handbook analyses the findings of the pilot studies done in Bangladesh, El Salvador, Italy, Kenya, South Korea, Malawi, New Zealand and Peru.

A follow-up publication The State of Democracy: Democracy Assessments in Eight Nations Around the world presents detailed summaries of these studies.

Part 1: Explaining the Method

• Explaining the Assessment Framework
• Charting the Process of Assessment
• Strategies for Making Democracy Assessments Public

Part 2: Democracy Assessment in Practice

• Examples of Democracy Assessments
• Assessing Accountability: the Use of Qualitative Tables
• Measuring Democratic Progress: the Use of Quantitative Information
• Codes of Good Practice

Part 3: The Assessment Framework

• Full List of Search Questions
• The assessment framework: Four columns
• Preliminary Data

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