Abstract (eng)
Index combination constitutes the most recent development within the scientific field of democratic quality assessment. In the course of this study, a genuine experimental meta-index, notably the QD-Index, is theoretically conceptualized as well as practically operationalized. Concretely, the Worldwide Governance Indicators, Freedom House and Vanhanen’s Index of Democratization are combined for the year 2006. In general, the QDI enables a more reliable and more valid assessment of democratic quality on a global scale, because it combines the constituent indices’ respective strengths.
The QDI results are, however, also biased to some extent, which is due to the methodological particularities of the processed indices.