News
Democracy Audits and Governmental Indicators discussed at Berkeley
On October 30-31, 2009, the UNDP Oslo Governance Centre joined other experts from around the world to assess the current state of democracy audits and to develop an agenda for constructing better governance indicators. The meeting was organized by the American Political Science Association (APSA) and was hosted by the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
On October 30-31, 2009, the UNDP Oslo Governance Centre joined other experts from around the world to assess the current state of democracy audits and to develop an agenda for constructing better governance indicators. The meeting was organized by the American Political Science Association (APSA) and was hosted by the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
The conference was initiated by APSA to understand and document how political indicators have come to be used as tools for gauging democratic and governmental performance, to evaluate the promise and pitfalls of relying upon them for decision making about complex phenomena, to develop better ways to construct them, and to ensure that indicators are not only valid and reliable but also practical and convincing to the public.
The Conference explored the conceptual foundations of governmental indicators, assessing the validity and reliability of various indicators and had a candid discussion about their utility for public policy making and their legitimacy both in terms of the connection to political theory, its consistence with empirical social science techniques and the political acceptability (especially in regards to the perceived bias of the producer). There was considerable concern that the proliferation of democracy and governance indices produced by political scientists and others had not been accompanied by sufficient quality checks, for example through the transparent publication of technical notes about how each of these measures are constructed, the degree of measurement error, and the sources of funding and accountability.
The American Political Science Association will draw on the Conference work by forming a Presidential Task Force on democratic governance indicators that will oversee a number of tasks, including: the creation of an inventory and review of existing democratic governance indicators; the undertaking of a review of the ways in which these indicators are being used and their normative foundations and implications; and a review of the conceptualization of indicators using the tools and findings of political theory. OGC on behalf of UNDP has been invited as a member to the Task Force which will make suggestions and recommendations for a longer-term involvement of APSA and political scientists in the development, monitoring, and auditing of democratic governance indicators.
