Development of nationally owned democratic governance indicators

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.

Primary resources are:

 

 

Secondary 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.

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:

 

 

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.