Государство и народ: нарастающее многообразие моделей отношений

Политическая наука. 2024. № 2. С. 218–236.

Makarenko B.

The article substantiates the need to develop a universal index of
institutionalized competition and participation to be applied for assessing political
regimes in different states. This need is dictated by changes in societies and channels of
social communication produced by modernization and political development. In
political science, it is customary to consider such processes in the context of
democratization, but, in this case, a value-neutral assessment is offered. It is based only
on “hard” statistical data (primarily electoral) and analysis of the constitutional design
of political systems. Since a national parliament and the universal active suffrage can be
found in the vast majority of countries around the world, such an assessment might be
close to universal.
It is proposed to include one variable in the index to assess political
participation – data on turnout in national elections as a share of a country’s total adult
population. Political competition is analyzed basing on three primary and four
additional variables. The primary variables are the levels of competition in the
formation of the executive branch and the parliament, respectively, as well as the role
of the legislative branch in the formation of the executive one. Additional variables
include duration of the minimal electoral tradition, availability (or absence) of cases of
two or more changes of power as a result of elections in country’s history, availability
(or absence) of cases of deviation from constitutional norms during formation or
removal from power (for example, coups d’état), availability (or absence) of cases of
one person holding power for a period of three or more electoral cycles.
Such an index is comprehensive and universal; its development might make it
possible to assess and compare institutional conditions of political participation and
competition in the vast majority of countries in the world.

Keywords: выборы, модернизация, политическая конкуренция, политические партии, политическое участие, modernization, political participation, elections, парламентаризм, political competition, parliamentarism, political parties, Политический атлас современного мира 2.0, Political Atlas of the Modern World 2.0