Measuring Regime Type Due: Thursday, October 19th by 10pm via Brightspace It is the student’s responsibility to make sure the correct document is uploaded, and the submission confirmation is received (20 points) Imagine you are a policy advisor working in an important international organization. Your unit was assigned the task of writing a short memo evaluating the various measures of regime type and investigating its relationship with some important outcomes (such as GDP). As a member of the team, you will examine two commonly used measures of regime type: Polity IV and Freedom House. In your memo, you should: a) Discuss how regime type has been measured and coded in two datasets: Polity IV and Freedom House (4 points) b) Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Freedom House and Polity IV as measures of regime type (3 points) c) Describe trends in regime type across time and geographic region (“region”). Focus on “fh_status”, “fh_pr”, “fh_cl”, and “p_polity” variables but feel free to look at sub-categories for each (these are the variables with fh_ or p_ prefixes). Provide STATA charts where applicable (5 points): 1. Consider mean, modal, median value over time (not all are equally useful) 2. Are regional trends in regime type/freedom stable or not over time (e.g., is there a consistent increase or decrease in average scores)? 3. Keep an eye on missing data – are you looking at the same sample size over time? Why or why not? 4. Is freedom/democracy in decline according to these measures? 5. Look at the relationship of regime type with GDP per capita (“wdi_gdpcapcur”): what is the relationship (positive/negative/none, linear/non-linear, strong/weak relationship) between regime type and GDP per capita? Does it change over time? d) Provide your own independent assessment of the “Freedom scores” of a single country (of your choice) and explain how and why your scores differ (or not) from the official Freedom House evaluations in 2022 (https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores). Scores for each of 25 questions should be submitted in the Excel sheet provided alongside this assignment (each item ranges from 0 to 4 points). Please provide your assessment before looking at the official scores. You will not be graded on how close your own score is to the official one, but rather on your reflection/explanation regarding how and why your score is similar to/different from the official one. (4 points) e) Based on your answers to the questions above, discuss both the research and policy implications of using these datasets to answer questions that have regime type as a dependent (or independent) variable. Include citations and references where applicable. Memos should be about 5-7 pages, double spaced, 1” margins, font Times New Roman. Resources: http://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html https://freedomhouse.org/reports/freedom-world/freedom-world-research-methodology The dataset, STATA code, and videos from the workshops (Zoom > Cloud Recordings), and Excel sheet for Freedom House assessment (part (e) above) can be found on Brightspace. Write me the memo and fill in the Excel scoresheet please.
