Development of nationally owned democratic governance indicators
Name of Organization:
Geographical Scope:
Regions:
Country:
Purpose:
The project supports the development and application of nationally-owned democratic governance indicators (DGIs) to assess the progress in democratization as improving the quality of democracy has become a practical need and a political demand in both new or restored and mature democracies.
Today, as has been underlined at the ICNRD-5 discussions, a general commitment to the norms of democracy is no longer enough. The development of democracy assessment methodologies and various governance indicator exercises serve the idea of a systematic assessment of a country's political life by the people in new or restored and mature democracies.
So far, it is only in the ICNRD-5 outcome documents that the governments of new or restored democracies along with their counterparts from mature democracies have expressed their willingness to develop nationally-owned DGIs databases 'to be better able to monitor their progress in democratic and social development over time' (Ulaanbaatar Plan of Action: 3.1.c).
Thus, the development of DGIs under the project is the first attempt to produce a democracy assessment under the aegis of a governmental institution (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia) with a multistakeholder participation in new or restored democracies.
The results of the DGI exercise are to be fed into the draft National Plan of Action to consolidate democracy in Mongolia.
Website of initiative:
Funding sources:
UNDP
Source of Data:
Using a combination of own and existing data
Type of Data Collection:
Administrative Data
Census
Focus groups
In depth interviews
Panel of experts
Performance assessment / Desk studies
Random sample population survey
Secondary sources
Specifications of type of data collection:
Primary resources are:
- public and expert survey data
- transcripts of focus-groups discussion
- expert interviews
- dialogues
Secondary sources:
- observation
- statistic materials
- administrative data
- media sources
Stratified random sampling method has been applied to sample selection for survey. Six regions and the capital city of Ulaanbaatar have been selected on the basis of regional distribution. Within each regional strata simple random sample method has been applied. Data were weighted to match demographic characteristics, such as gender, age and education. The total size of sample after weighting is 1000 respondents.
Measurement Methods / Tools Generated or Used :
The design of the survey is the product of the national research team, based on the IDEA methodology and developed in the process of continuous consultations with foreign and local advisers and stakeholders. Its results are reflected in the assessment of questions around the four main pillars of the International IDEA democracy assessment framework:
- Citizenship, Law, and Rights
- Representative and Accountable Government
- Civil Society and Popular Participation
- Democracy Beyond the State
Bottom-up approach has been used in assessing the state of democracy according to core indicators of IDEA and developing satellite national indicators. The DGIs are fully nationally-owned.
Comparative analysis was used, combining quantitative and qualitative research methods: questionnaire as face to face interview, focus-groups discussions, expert interview, case studies and dialogues.
Quantitative methods establish general context and settings. Qualitative methods illuminate variations in DGIs among different social groups and in different contexts.
List of Indicators:
The study covers more than 90 indicators. The survey is organized around 70+ indicators.
Some of them are listed below:
- Citizenship, Law, and Rights Knowledge of Constitution and laws, legal routines, accessibility of legal consultations, perception and evaluation of legal systems' operation; Human rights: protection of civil rights, social and economic rights: type of housing, access to education, ability to obtain job, incidence, type and spheres of social discrimination.
- Representative and Accountable Government Political activity, involvement, voting pattern, party allegiance, evaluation of public institutions, including government branches, the media, the police, Election and Human Rights Commissions; access to government information, perception and spread of corruption.
- Civil Society and Popular Participation Interest in politics, political participation; membership in private and public groups, frequency of group participation, activeness of civil society institutions in local places, impact of local government policies on daily life, efficacy and the ability of people to influence the government, performance of local government, access to information and information channels, Social Capital.
- Democracy beyond the State Perception of Donors' assistance and foreign aid, access to information about donors' assistance, evaluation of Mongolian democracy beyond the State.
- Social-Economic Background
- Migration experience, gender, age, place of residence and distance to settled place in rural areas, location in capital, marital status, number of household members and children, employment, education level, literacy, religion and religiosity, income, and ethnicity.
Main Users:
Civil society
Media
Policy makers
Researchers