Deat Jean-Paul Gagnon

For me, democracy, as we understand it, is an illusion, since we do not actually elect public servants, people literally at the service of the people; on the contrary, we elect a kind of elite that ends up governing the people and imposing their rules. Therefore, what is measured when measuring democracy is the illusion of electing representatives, not the reality of the political model, this is because, in fact, very few of the elected politicians (there are always exceptions) are dedicated in any way unequivocal to serve the people. They do some things for people, of course, but not everything they should.

Measuring democracy is the process of evaluating the quality and functioning of democratic systems, institutions, and processes. There are several different aspects of democracy that can be measured, including:

Electoral process: This includes measuring the fairness and transparency of elections, the level of voter participation, and the integrity of the vote counting process.

Civil liberties: This includes measuring the degree to which individuals and groups are able to exercise their civil rights and freedoms, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly.

Representation: This includes measuring the degree to which citizens are represented in government, through the election of officials who reflect the diversity of the population and through the existence of effective institutions for citizen participation in government.

Accountability and transparency: This includes measuring the degree to which government officials and institutions are held accountable for their actions and whether the government is transparent in its decision-making and operations.

The rule of law: This includes measuring the degree to which the legal system is independent and impartial, and whether the government is bound by and respects the rule of law.

Political culture: This includes measuring the degree to which citizens participate in politics, the degree to which citizens trust government and political institutions, and the degree to which citizens have a sense of political efficacy.

There are many different ways to measure these aspects of democracy, such as through the use of data, surveys, and expert assessments. Some of the widely used indicators include Freedom House, Polity IV, V-Dem, World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), and Democracy Index by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)

It is worth noting that measuring democracy is a complex task and it's important to have a clear understanding of what is being measured and how the data is being collected and analyzed in order to provide an accurate and meaningful assessment of democracy.

Dear Dr. Jean-Paul Gagnon,

You may find interesting the following data:

Sabari Ganesh (Quora)

Educational qualifications of the elected representatives and how relevant are those qualifications to the portfolios they are handling.

Percentage of voter turnout during elections - To measure whether people care for the country or not.

Educational qualifications of people who turned out and skipped to exercise their franchise.

Number of violent incidents on the election day.

Proportional representation.

Level of access of judiciary to everyone.

Percentage of police cases that are solved and brought to justice in every economic segment of the population in a year.

Average number of days that would take to get a bail to a person in every economic level, (very poor, poor, lower middle class, upper middle class, rich, ultra-rich) whether or not he really committed some shit.

Difference of net worth of elected leaders and his/her family before and after their tenure.

Detailed receipts and statements of pollical parties campaign expenditure.

Number of items people are receiving free of cost as freebies from elected governments.

Success rate of those candidates contesting the election whose religion/caste has very less population in his/her constituency. (This is used to see if Muslim majority constituency is able to vote for a Hindu leader and vice versa. People should elect a person based on his credibility, not his religion/caste.)

Gender ratio of contesting candidates in each constituency and the respective success rates.

https://www.quora.com/What-practices-and-institutions-would-you-look-for-if-you-wanted-to-measure-democracy

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Democracy data: how do researchers measure democracy?

There are many ways to classify and measure political systems. What approaches do different researchers take?

https://ourworldindata.org/democracies-measurement

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What Is Democracy and How It Can Be Measured?

September 27, 2019

https://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/what-is-democracy-and-how-it-can-be-measured/?ysclid=ld1izli2em184031542

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I believe that when measuring democracy, we are assessing the degree to which citizens have meaningful access to meaningful participation in public decision-making. This includes elements such as free and fair elections, access to voting, civil liberties, freedom of speech, access to information, and other measures of political freedom. We are also assessing the degree to which public policies are designed to promote the public good and not just the interests of a small group of elites.