The Polity data are widely used to explore the causes and consequences of democratic authority patterns. These data often have been used uncritically. The authors explore some of the theoretical and empirical characteristics of these data. They show how the analytical composition of the well-known democracy and autocracy scores is not upheld by an empirical analysis of the component measurements and demonstrate that democracy, as measured by the Polity indicators, is fundamentally a reflection of decisional constraints on the chief executive. The recruitment and participation dimensions are shown to be empirically extraneous despite their centrality in democratic theory. The authors conclude that it is a mistake to overlook the categorical nature of these data and that an analysis of the constituent authority patterns is likely to be fruitful for the democratic peace and democratization literature.
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