Political Constraint Index

Henisz, University of Pennsylvania

Measure the feasibility of change in policy given the structure of a nation’s political institutions and the preference of the actors that inhabit them.

University of Pennsylvania.

The Political Constraint Index is used for political risk analysis for investment purposes and for predicting policy variability more generally.

Publicly available administrative data on countries’ political institutions (uses crossnational times series dataset http://www.databanks.sitehosting.net/)

Global: 234 countries.

henisz@wharton.upenn.edu.

The index uses quantitative data on the number of independent branches of administrative government with veto power, over policy change, and the distribution of preferences within those veto players. These data are analysed in a simple spatial model of political interaction to assess the feasibility with which any one actor can secure a change in the status quo.

Scale 0 (most hazardous - no checks and balances) to 1 (most constrained – extensive checks and balances).

The index can be used to determine the constraints faced by politicians desiring to change a status quo policy in a country in a given year.

The index is a narrow measure of political institutions and should not be used as a measurement for democracy or good governance.