Political Atlas of the Modern World

An Experiment in Multidimensional Statistical Analysis of the Political Systems of Modern States

Andrei Melville, Yuri Polunin, Mikhail Ilyin, Mikhail Mironyuk, Ivan Timofeev, Elena Meleshkina, Yan Vaslavskiy, Andrei Melville, Yuri Polunin, Mikhail Ilyin, Mikhail Mironyuk, Ivan Timofeev, Elena Meleshkina, Yan Vaslavskiy

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9781444335804
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781444351958
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Political Atlas of the Modern World is a unique reference source which addresses these questions by providing a comparative study of the political systems of all 192 countries of the world. 

• Uses quantitative data and multidimensional statistical analysis
• Ranks countries according to five indices of political development: stateness, external and internal threats, potential of international influence, quality of life, institutional basis of democracy
• Illustrated throughout with tables and diagrams.

1

Theoretical and Methodological Grounds of the Project

1.1 Comparative Analysis Methods

1.1.1 What Makes This Project Different

The main purpose of the Political Atlas of the Modern World project is the derivation of a multidimensional classification of contemporary political systems and political regimes by developing and implementing complex (including sequential) methods of comparative analysis. To this end, empirical quantitative and qualitative methods used in modern comparative studies are integrated into a new complex approach for assessing the situation in the whole system of states as well as its individual “cells.” An attempt is made to move on from efforts to draw separate “maps” showing the world political reality in only one dimension to a system of integrating the diverse dimensions step by step as a basis for an integral “atlas.”

This complex approach is, in fact, what makes this Political Atlas methodologically different from other projects carried out to create country rankings which are, as a rule, one-dimensional and derived from different indices.

A good example of the latter practice is provided by Ted Robert Gurr et al. who have, for over three decades now, been comparing countries around the world according to the Polity Index (ranging from “democracy” to “autocracy”). Tatu Vanhanen at Helsinki University, Finland, has developed the Democratization Index. Freedom House publishes annually its country ratings on the basis of just two indices of political rights and civil liberties (“free” – “partly free” – “unfree”). Transparency International compares the world’s nations using its own, narrow-focused Corruption Perception Index (from corruption “practically absent” to “a very high level of corruption”). For more details on these and some other projects, see Section 1.3.

Naturally, all these projects have their strong and their weak points. For some, years of comparative studies have resulted in valuable databases. The methodological instruments used to construct numerous indices and rankings are regularly corrected, which is absolutely normal for studies of such a scale. Therein lie their advantages. However, the question is: how can the realities of our world, complex, variable, and multidimensional as they are, be measured and understood adequately by using indices and rankings nailed each to a simplified alternative scale – either “democracy” or “autocracy,” “freedom” or “non-freedom,” etc.?

Once again, we are neither ignoring nor throwing away existing approaches. Quite the contrary, we consider, to the extent possible, existing projects. We are seeking, among other things, to give priority to quantified data derived from generally accepted, relevant information sources for all 192 countries of the world. We admit, though, that it is unwise to shun expert assessments, however highly we regard our own approach, nor have we done so. Still, our aim is to minimize the role of expert assessments in the database we have built for our project, and we have been working to develop safeguards (if these exist at all) against personalization of assessments of political events. We tend to elaborate qualitative and quantitative instruments of comparative analysis matching up to the complex and contradictory political realities of the contemporary world. This is why an attempt is made in this project to develop multidimensional models of comparative analysis of political systems and political regimes. And we say again, we have been building an “atlas,” rather than drawing a “political map of the modern world.” The multidimensional and multifaceted political realities we are witnessing around us today require something more sophisticated than a handful of conventional “maps” to facilitate a comparative analysis in different directions, without linking the dots into one systemically organized product, a full match for the systemic organization of the modern world.

1.1.2 Our Point of Departure

At the start of the project we proceeded from a set of assumptions. First of all, the structural diversity of the modern world has set contemporary political development on different paths, or vectors. In fact, the development can be seen through different models and directions. Realization of this is becoming more crystallized as modernization gains in depth and speed, and spills over into globalization, its modern-age phase. To see that this is so, one can compare the ways of the political evolution of post-communist countries, some of which are consolidating into Western-type liberal democracies, others emerging as autocracies of types previously unknown, and still others establishing themselves as hybrid regimes of every hue. Evidence of diversity of political development can be seen in almost every corner of the contemporary world.

Another argument is that no universal models exist in the modern world to fit each and every country or nation, however one might wish they could. Not even what appear to be “ideal” patterns of political, social, and economic setup, if they are implanted to an irresponsive environment, necessarily work (Afghanistan and Iraq are the latest examples of how deceptive an attractive illusion, as it appears at first sight, this can be). Political options, abundant as they are already, are multiplying, while internal and external factors shaping up national political models are proliferating.

We concede that the paths of national and global political evolution are charted by “structures’’ and “actors’’ alike. At the same time, we emphasize the organic nature of evolution and uselessness of random attempts to implant political regimes and institutions, even if labeled “ideal,” from outside to a social “body” that is not ready (or rather not prepared) to accept them. We are far from suggesting that no general trends (such as globalization, localization, transnationalization, democratization, etc.) are taking hold in the world. Our point is that the world does not, and will not ever accept, a single, unified example to embrace.

Worldwide political processes are becoming more diversified, and the body politic is expanding as well. This brings us face to face with a multitude of dimensions of political reality and its analytical projections that would be unfamiliar to our fathers, grandfathers, and, still less, the generations before them. What, in fact, are the new dimensions and realms of the body politic? These are, for example, forecasting and planning, that is, evaluation of development opportunities and available resources, and an ability to develop, short-, medium-, and long-term political strategies. They also include the issue of integral security, or a set of conditions on which the survival of countries and their citizens depends. Finally, a general exercise of sovereignty by countries and human rights by their citizens, and the management of demographics and migration and also of information, communications, sciences, and technologies, is needed in order to sustain an ongoing political process.

The emerging new dimensions and realms of the body politic have injected a new significance into political interchanges on the supranational (international and regional) level “above” traditional national borders, and on the subnational (regional and local) level, “across” borders rather than within them. This has added a new quality to traditional domestic and foreign policies of all countries. A modern state, or, more exactly, a community of countries, has morphed from a club of sovereign member countries to a framework, a kind of “reference grid,” for all political processes to evolve in.

The expanding realm of the body politic in different, at times opposite, directions – national, transnational, and subnational, on grids, or beyond systems – calls for a balanced and considerate analysis to be appraised. Indeed, a greater role in world politics is played by nongovernmental actors, and governments’ prerogatives and their countries’ borders are going through changes, so great indeed that they look eroded, in terms of dogmas professed by preceding generations. For all that, today, too (and, basically, in the short run as well) nothing compares to nation-states in their role as basic “cells” of the world setup.

Notwithstanding the real trends of globalization and transnationalization, national polities exist, as they have ever been, each within its confined space and its specific timeframe. This is not to be taken for a rejection of “global axial time”; rather, it is a suggestion that national polities each have their own “evolutionary age” and develop as their internal logic commands and their priorities call for. Besides, the “honeycombed” structure of world politics built by the world’s nations has formed and continues to be formed in specific evolutionary and historical conditions. It is worthwhile remembering that the earliest generations of international systems, including the historically real, not abstract, Westphalia system, were highly asymmetrical. They were knocked together by a few sovereign polities (in the case of Westphalia, they were the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, Sweden, and France), who admitted handpicked polities to fulfill the roles of doubles or extras into their select club, and viewed the rest as subjects to be manipulated.

Political systems came and went in succession. More exactly, they grew out of one another, the successor inheriting the legacy left by its predecessor. As international systems progressed through history, they expanded (by taking in more members) and became more sophisticated (as their structure transformed). Relations between sovereign nation-states changed, and so did the rules of the game. As old key players tripped over, their places were filled by new ones. The growing number of actors and the balance of power they invoked as their underlying principle made equality of sovereign nations no less rational than the guiding will of powers at the core of the system. Symmetry in relations between countries as the system’s “cells” was a result found to be alongside asymmetry.

As the international system evolved into a worldwide setup, the diversity of polity types intensified in each “cell.” The UN today is a place where old-timers, with 400–500 years of sovereignty of different forms behind them (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, and Denmark, etc.), rub shoulders with over a dozen types of political newcomers. Some of these spawned on the West European periphery or came to life through a merger (like Germany and Italy) or a spin-off from the erstwhile sovereign club members (Norway, Ireland, Finland, and Iceland, etc.). Others popped out of nowhere, it seemed, jumping onto the West European bandwagon (the US, Canada, and Australia, in the first place). Still others walked into the international system lugging along their particular civilization traditions and non-European forms of political organization (Russia, Japan, and China). More countries went through the death-and-rebirth ordeal (India, Egypt, etc.). Another group forced themselves upon the international community against the pressure put on them by the great powers (Turkey, Ethiopia, Thailand, etc.). Yet another batch was fashioned by the great powers at different times of history (Greece, Albania, the Little Entente). A further group of countries were given stateness because they had none (Micronesia and many other insular entities, several African states, etc.), with strings still being pulled on them from outside, a formal way of plugging holes in the global “cellular” structure. Last to arrive were several successive waves of post-colonial polities of various types, with more or less developed alternative versions of stateness.

Do we really have a suitable scale to compare contemporary states?

1.1.3 Universal and Case Study Comparisons

This diversity of nature and types is a formidable challenge to a researcher comparing political entities, all of which we call states, out of habit. However, comparisons are possible even in the face of this challenge. Such comparisons are called universal, and their chief merit lies in their general applicability, while their disadvantage is inevitably the relative scarcity of knowledge they yield about the subjects. To put it in different terms, the universality of this scale may distort outcomes for countries that are far too different to be measured with a single yardstick (or even several yardsticks), and the differences between them are so great because they belong to totally different groups. Even though the subjects of our universal comparisons are utterly different countries, the results will always be restrained in a certain way.

This is no reason, of course, for scrapping universal comparisons altogether, as they contribute valuable information to our understanding of the places that countries hold in the world and the links they maintain with one another, a subject that needs further research. At the same time, we believe that more in-depth results could be obtained and so the project we intend to carry on will take us from universal comparisons to detailed, case study comparisons, where we will be comparing “things comparable” in the full sense of the term, to see what’s what in a group or cluster of countries.

All the world’s countries we have in our total sample share, in fact, only one thing – UN membership – and, if taken to its extreme, the formal qualifications making them eligible for it. At the same time, the conditions dealt with above that they have to meet in order to be integrated into the world system and other features, more material than formal for them, elude universal comparisons.

Specific features are studied by various sorts of case study comparisons. Comparisons of this sort can be used at later stages of the project, while our immediate task is drawing a general outline of the “cellular” structure of world politics, which we intend to do by making a universal comparison of all contemporary sovereign states of the world.

Analogy is a good way to make our point clear. Take a simple example, exploring all buildings in an unfamiliar city – its residences, factories, stadiums, hospitals, and many other buildings. Before we compare them in groups, pairs, or otherwise, we have to have a general idea of the city’s layout – and understand which avenues, streets, and side streets are laid there, which places on streets and squares are occupied with buildings, and so on. only with all the answers on the table, can we proceed to case study comparisons.

This is exactly the approach we have taken to the task before us. As we have said already, relatively little can be gleaned from universal comparison. For more, a series of universal comparisons has to be run. Each successive comparison can add a little to the results already gained. The trick now is fitting all the bits into a jigsaw puzzle, rather than leave them in a heap.

We need to stake out the outlines of logic behind sequential complication of universal comparison and accumulation of results coming in.

The cellular structure of the world can be shown, by way of illustration, as a plain political map of the world showing the physical size of the “cells” and their position relative to one another. This is certainly too little to move forward on.

Our first move is to arrange cells in a certain order. The easiest arrangement is to use the simplest parameters available (such as income per capita, etc.). As we said above, arranging countries in this way has a serious failing. It yields one-dimensional results and gives only a very crude idea about the world at large and about individual countries, in particular. Increasing the number of parameters runs the risk of losing clarity. The picture of the world falls apart into unrelated scales (“linear pseudo-maps”). However, this is the kind of material we can lay our hands on. And it is the stuff that we fed into our empirical database structured according to about 60 variables (each tagged with a value for each country) and scale to match.

Our next step is ranging the countries more accurately (adequately), using five complex indices combining different weighted parameters. The indices are based on key factors affecting a polity’s standing in the world.

What are these key factors?¹

The first factor is, of course, the quality of stateness, that is, the level of real (not formal) sovereignty, independence, and self-sufficiency in policymaking, and an ability of the state to maintain an efficient operation and reproduction of political, economic, social, and any other institutions. The second factor is the magnitude of threats and challenges posed from outside and inside, and capable of reducing, or even draining, the efficiency of stateness and stateness itself. The third factor is the state’s combined resources it can rally to influence the international environment in achieving its national goals. The fourth factor is the quality of a state’s social functions, above all, giving the livelihood to its own population. Finally, a country’s standing in the world is affected by whether or not it can draw on an institutional potential to promote democratic development (in the first place, this suggests traditions of political competition, representation, participation, constraints on the executive branch of government, and respect for the constitution). This factor gives an indication of how much leverage the constituents have to influence decision-making on issues affecting their vested interests. These traditions can, in theory, strike root in the subsoil of undemocratic regimes, but their institutional legacy (socio-economic, cultural, political, or other values of modern democracy) carries the makings of truly democratic institutions and practices.

For the purposes of our project, we developed a cohesive system of multidimensional, composite indices that, combined, give us a clue as to the place of a country in the world, its position in the global scheme of interrelations. These are the indices of:

(1) stateness;

(2) external and internal threats;

(3) potential of international influence;

(4) quality of life;

(5) institutional basis of democracy.

Ranking the world’s nations according to five composite indices is a step from unidimensionality toward multidimensionality. Still, the emerging picture is only an approximation, and a very incomplete one, of the “cellular” world it displays as a collection of “pseudo-maps” more adequately than could be done by one-parameter rankings.

The next step is obtaining a true multidimensional picture of the structure of the countries of the world by using the principal components method. In our project four principal components were set off (for more detail, see below). We find them to be helpful in constructing more complex gauging scales which are more in agreement with reality than the five basic indices. The scales built by the principal component method differ far more greatly from the one-dimensional scales. They are useful in ranking the “cells” (countries) on polarized scales (with positive and negative values) illustrating integral characteristics of one sort or another. They can rightly be called “proto-maps.” To remind, we still remain within the framework of universal comparisons, though at a significantly higher level than we started out in terms of results.

Yet there is more room to go from here. We can move on to make universal comparison still more complex to squeeze out more content. For example, the four principal components can be paired to create six projections giving six complementary pictures of the world (or “maps”).

The six world maps derived in this way appear to show “clusters of cells.” Analyzing the position of these clusters in the world system is the next and closing step of universal comparison, which is performed using the cluster analysis spotlighting relationships between groups of countries as dendrograms and tables. They reflect structural links between clusters and from them on to clusters bigger yet (complex clusters), and describe the general outlines of the “cellular” structure as well as places of countries and groups within it. These outlines are presented by means of so-called conceptual mapping.

These sequential universal comparison methods and the basic empirical hypotheses we laid out above were placed at the foundations of the project methodology and used to develop techniques for conducting a comparative analysis of political sys...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1: Theoretical and Methodological Grounds of the Project
• 2: Indices: Rationale and Structure
• 3: Country Ratings
• 4: Countries Classified by Principal Components Method and Cluster Analysis
• 5: From Universal Comparisons to Country Profiles
• Conclusion
• Index of Countries
• Index of Names