If you follow the Global Integrity blog, then there's a good chance you have an interest in how to measure fuzzy concepts such as governance and corruption; it's an issue Global Integrity tracks closely. If so, then you should read Gerardo L. Munck's recently published Measuring Democracy. It's a hard-hitting critique of the conventional wisdom (and widely used data) used to measure democracy.

In Gerry's slim but powerful volume, he takes up many of the same questions we've been wrestling with in the context of "democracy" and democracy-promotion. Can we measure "democracy"? And if we can, what are best practices to guide such a measurement exercise?

The book is Measuring Democracy: A Bridge Between Scholarship and Politics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). We should disclose that we've worked with Gerry in the past and think highly of his work.

In Measuring Democracy, the author promotes a series of simple yet powerful best practices that should be the basis for any scholarly or practitioner-based assessment of democracy at the country level. Those best practices focus around a framework (developed with Jay Verkuilen) that emphasize three key attributes of any measurement tool or resultant data:

• the precision around conceptualization of data (in other words, are you precise in developing a tool to measure the concept you're interested in?);
• the consistency of actual measurement, especially the importance of clear and identifiable scoring criteria (or "coding," to use the social science parlance);
• and the rationale behind the selection of an aggregation methodology to transform disparate and disaggregated data into accessible indices.

Although this measurement movement is resulting in more and better data on politics, the limitations of current knowledge should be acknowledged. Such an acknowledgment is particularly critical because data on politics are increasingly used in the world of politics. NGOs use data for purposes of advocacy; a variety of actors regularly invoke statistical analyses on the causes and consequences of democracy to justify their support of, or opposition to, different policies; and governments, [intergovernmental organizations], and the [multilateral development banks] link data on politics to policy choices and governance-related conditionalities. Moreover, such an acknowledgment is key because information presented in quantitative form is generally accorded a special status. After all, one of the selling points of using data on politics is that they draw on the power of an association with science and hence are treated with considerable deference by public officials and the public. Yet this assumed scientific status verges on being a misrepresentation if the current state of knowledge regarding the measurement of political concepts.

By Jonathan Eyler-Werve for the Global Integrity Commons

The former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund offers a sweeping and articulate indictment of the US financial system. Simon Johnson argues that blaming favorite policies of the right or left misses the larger point: that the financial sector grew so large that oligarchs dictated policy to government, most of which passed without a blink. It's a pattern, he says, that looks a lot like a financial collapse in an emerging market, but will be, in the end, much much worse.

It's a long essay, but absolutely worth reading: The Quiet Coup, published in The Atlantic.

I'll pull some key passages here:

Typically, these countries [seeking IMF assistance] are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason--the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit--and, most of the time, genteel--oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Russia grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon--correctly, in most cases--that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.

From this confluence of campaign finance, personal connections, and ideology there flowed, in just the past decade, a river of deregulatory policies that is, in hindsight, astonishing:

• insistence on free movement of capital across borders;

• the repeal of Depression-era regulations separating commercial and investment banking;

• a congressional ban on the regulation of credit-default swaps;

• major increases in the amount of leverage allowed to investment banks;

• a light (dare I say invisible?) hand at the Securities and Exchange Commission in its regulatory enforcement;

• an international agreement to allow banks to measure their own riskiness;

• and an intentional failure to update regulations so as to keep up with the tremendous pace of financial innovation.

The mood that accompanied these measures in Washington seemed to swing between nonchalance and outright celebration: finance unleashed, it was thought, would continue to propel the economy to greater heights.

The open and convenient access to government information is essential to democracy. However, our data from the Global Integrity Report shows that the legislation and practice of this right vary greatly across the globe. Here we look at the best and worst in 57 countries.

Access to information is a core component in Global Integrity's research toolkit, the Integrity Indicators, a series of questions that measure the performance of key anti-corruption frameworks at the national level. Every year, we ask local research teams to assess whether citizens have a legal right to access to information, and whether citizens can in practice use these rights to get information about their government.

Low Scores: Africa and the Middle East

In 2008, three of the 57 countries we studied did not have a freedom of information (FOI) law: Nigeria, Ghana and Iraq. Our researcher in Nigeria noted that the FOI bill has been sitting in the Nigerian congress since it was first proposed in 1999. We found a similar situation in Ghana, where an article exists in the Ghanaian constitution to ensure citizen rights to information, but this article had not yet been brought before Parliament for approval.

One of our Key Findings for the Global Integrity Report: 2008, was that public access to information is the most serious transparency issue facing many Middle Eastern and North African nations. Privacy International's map on National Freedom of Information Laws, Regulations and Bills 2008 only confirms our assessment of the region. In regional terms, the Middle East and North Africa are the worst in the world at FOI, which we discussed at length in a previous analysis.

Even in countries with weak legal frameworks guaranteeing access, citizens can sometimes gain access to government documents, but only on a case-by base basis. Our researcher in Ghana notes: "Although there is no access to information legislation, citizens can obtain information from government agencies depending on the approach and the agency's goodwill." And, in Iraq, "There is no established mechanism [for citizen access to information]. But some government offices, such as the Board of Supreme Auditing, publish reports on their websites." Without the proper institutions, citizens can easily be dissuaded with long and ineffective application processes or by the need to massage the process with bribes.

Best Scores: Europe, Japan and... Jordan?

On the other side of this issue, we have the all-star team of access to information. This list includes: Italy, Japan, Bulgaria, Turkey, Jordan, Hungary and Lithuania. In these nations, FOI laws ensure the right to information and functioning institutions exist where citizens can claim that right.

Jordan is notable standout here, doing much better than it's regional peers, which we discussed in a previous analysis.

Considering that the European Union emphasis on "openness" as a guiding principal for its member-states, it is not surprising that the Eastern-European nations of Bulgaria, Turkey, Hungary and Lithuania would have strong FOI credentials to coincide with their recent or ongoing applications for EU membership. Lithuania's 1996 Law on the Provision of Information to the Public even directly states its secondary purpose as "ensuring the application of European Union legal acts."

In a recent post to the Global Integrity Commons blog, Daniela Araujo discusses how governance reforms in Eastern European nations can be directly tied to the region's drive for EU membership. While the perks of EU status have undoubtedly factored into the recent FOI legislation in Lithuania, Hungary and Bulgaria, there are other internal factors at work.

Canada and the Unites States (studied in 2007) both miss the best-of list with moderate scores. In both countries, researchers noted long delays in government replies to information requests.

Secret Police Files

The secrecy and paranoia of the communist era have left deep imprints on the former-Soviet republics and the USSR satellite countries. Government permeated every-day life, with agents literally listening into kitchen-table conversations through wire-taps. While these regimes had seemingly total access to the lives of their citizens, an impenetrable wall was drawn around national leadership, blocking citizen access to the decision-making process.

Data from the Global Integrity Report shows that with the development of effective institutions, such as a freedom of information acts, the lack of transparency found in Soviet-style governance structures is disappearing in the region. As these nations open citizen access to government documents, public curiosities surrounding secret police files from the Cold War-era have raised tough societal dilemmas. Previously heavily guarded, these files expose the degree to which individuals were monitored by the government and implicate those involved, both as police agents and as collaborators from ordinary society.

Slowly, each of the former Soviet sphere nations has allowed for varying degrees of citizen access to these surveillance records:

- In Bulgaria, files from the infamous Darzhavna Sigurnost communist-era police agency were opened in 2006. A Files Commission was created in 2007 and the group has slowly released names of former communist police collaborators in small batches, like the names printed in Novintine, a Sophia news agency, in October 2008. As another part of the reopening of these secret files, citizens are able to access their personal records as created by the Darzhavna Sigurnost agency.

- Hungary has an even more open policy with its communist-era secret police files. Beginning in 2003, all Hungarians can request to see their personal records and victim can receive the names of their government informants.

- Poland (which still scored well in the 2008 Report, despite missing the top-tier mark) opened its Communist-era secret files were opened in 2006, allowing citizens to request access to their personal files and to have their names cleared through the courts, in cases of misrepresentation. In 2007, Poland increased the scope of its political vetting process, requiring that lower-level public servant such as teachers, judges and heads of state-owned-enterprises (as well as more prominent public officials) declare their involvement with the secret police. These statements were then checked against the secret files, not necessarily to detect conspiracy, but to verify that officials were not lying about their past. However, the inaccuracies and sketchy recording practices of these files have caused many cases where individuals have been wrongfully identified as collaborators.

- In 2006, Lithuania opened its files to unlimited public access. This decision defies the trend within the former USSR countries, where many have made the choice to keep these documents hidden.

A slap and a death threat on a public sidewalk; a radio antenna expertly sabotaged; overt warnings that some names must never be mentioned in print. Reporting on corruption in Argentina is dangerous work, and local journalists say it is getting worse.

While coming out of a store last December, Argentinian reporter Rigoberto Carrigall was confronted by two individuals who slapped him and threatened to kill him. They also ordered him to stop writing about a lawyer who until very recently was in public office and is now the executive director of a radio station.

According to Carrigall, the lawyer watched the aggression from a black BMW parked outside the store.

In February, a regional politician of the ruling party involved in a scandal told journalist Mario Otero that he´s going to rip his head off if he writes anything about his sons. When asked about it, the politician said the reporter had provoked him with an ironic comment but reiterated the threat. He added that it is also valid for any other reporter who mentions the involvement of his sons in the scandal.

Radio Goya, a small cooperative of 20 independent reporters, suffered the loss of its antennae one January night, when three of its steel wires where cut and made it fall down. The station´s representative said the type of cuts proves the attack was perpetrated by individuals who used special machinery and knew exactly which wires would affect the structure. The price of the antennae will stop the station from broadcasting for many months and, for the time being, is forcing it to broadcast from another station that reaches a far smaller audience.

These and similar cases are the first thing one notices when visiting the Argentinian Journalism Forum´s website (in Spanish) and help explain why Argentina dropped from the Moderate tier in 2007 to the Weak tier in the Global Integrity Report: 2008.

The country´s scorecard on media issues paints an ugly picture, where not only regional politicians try to restrict freedom of the press but the national government is also openly using public resources to manipulate publications.

In the Global Integrity Report: 2007, one of our peer reviewers gave the voice of alarm that in the last few years the use of cancellation of official advertising as a tool to punish or reward publications "increased tremendously".

According to the report, under President Nestor Kirchner´s term (2003-2007) there was more self-imposed censorship than under Carlos Menem (1989-1999), who is currently on trial on arm-smuggling charges.

Menem's legal process started after a journalistic investigation revealed that he approved the illegal sell of weapons to Croatia and Ecuador, in violation of U.N. and Organization of American States bans. He denies the charges.

There were expectations that in 2008, under new President Cristina Fernández, Kirchner´s wife, things would get better, but the Global Integrity Report: Argentina shows the opposite has happened. According to our lead researcher, the Government not only continues to utilize official advertising but has given a step forward and now even puts pressure on companies to make them advertise on certain media organizations only.

Reporters and opposition leaders point out there´s also a proliferation of private companies that sympathize with the Government and are dedicated to pursue millions in public advertising, by creating or buying media organizations.

While there is no pre-publication censorship in Argentina, "in some cases there are phone calls or verbal threats to stop the publication of information that may affect the Government´s public image". This blog previously covered Argentina's use of "soft censorship" via government advertising.

The tactic of punishing media by withdrawing advertising is so evident that in at least one recent case the Supreme Court ruled against that practice and more similar rulings are expected soon. However, the fight could be decided in Congress.

President Fernandez expects congressmen to start debating soon a Government-sponsored bill intended to regulate the work of the media, while the opposition is preparing on a bill to regulate the distribution of public advertising.

May freedom of the press win.

-- Hazel Feigenblatt for the Global Integrity Commons