Talk:Polity data series

But what does "scoring an 8" even mean? I couldn't easily find anything on the Polity project site either. -- &mdash; Northgrove 23:32, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

This Graphic is in my opinion not very useful. The growth in democratic states is indeed growing like shown, but it gives the impression that all states are now democratic. Max numbers of states should be the real actual max number of states. This would show that 1/3 of the states score with 8 or more out of 10 points. Even more useful would be the average democracy, autocracy, and anocracy scores as seen in several scientific publications. Emile le reveil (talk) 15:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

My critical entry about the Polity data was changed to this, which is vaugue, and not too grammatical: "A paper discussing claiming problems with democracy rankings including Polity can be found here." So I'll have to revert it but I'll incorporate some of the changes.Giovanni33 (talk) 18:15, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * More correct description of paper. Removed "discussing".Ultramarine (talk) 04:33, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Bosnia and Herzegovina
Why is it a -66, worse than North Korea? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.68.225.28 (talk) 23:12, 25 April 2015 (UTC)


 * That's not an "actual" score. It indicates an interruption for the polity. Jackninja5 (talk) 03:44, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Canada, Australia, New Zealand
I dont know if its a joke of bad taste or what. These three countries in this article are incorrectly called full democracy. They are very far located from the middle ages and Europe, but they do have an imperialist European monarch against to all common sense of democracy of the 21st century. Countries where at least the case of Canada the English descendant people do less than 50 percent of the population and even in this segment of the population they are not very satisfied of having an European monarch in the American continent actually thats the main reason why their ancestors landed on the other side of the puddle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.172.111 (talk) 09:18, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * whaaat?!? You mean they're saying a monarchy can be more Democratic than a Republic?! Lies!! Heresy!! Burn them at the steak!!

Someone's clearly been indoctrinated from a young age by their Republican government's compulsory education... which republic, though? The USSR, China, North Korea....the USA? all are republics. Maybe the republic distinction aint adv important as they programmed you to think it was after all? Firejuggler86 (talk) 13:44, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

2017 figures?
I see that someone has put in 2017 "updates" for the database, but where do the 2017 figures come from? The latest version of the database referenced in the article is from 2015. And in fact, the Polity IV Project database page (http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm) says that version IV has been discontinued and a version V is "currently in development". So where are the 2017 figures coming from? Can we please link to the version V database, if it exists? --Hibernian (talk) 04:37, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * They came from here. While they are developing version V, they seem to still be using version IV for the time being.  The Ninja5 Empire  ( Talk ) 12:02, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Full Democracy .vs. Democracy
This entry seems to be missing a definition/explanation of Full Democracy and Democracy. For example, why the difference between France and the UK? Why is the former a Democracy and the latter a Full Democracy?

46.227.49.108 (talk) 14:09, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Anocracy and China
As this is the page being refereed to by the Polity score link, the score itself is less explained that in the anocracy page, which is quite lengthy compared to this one, and some of the info there could be here instead. The reason for this post though is that there seem to be soe vandalisms on the page both recently, and in the past. does this warrant some kind of softer lock on it? 89.229.74.14 (talk) 14:58, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Lead section
I have removed from the lead section 70+ words on criticism of the data series. The criticism is fairly marginal: it's one report by FAIR, which is a fairly marginal advocacy group, and then one criticism by a single associate professor in a 2015 blog post. These are OK for the body of the article (where they are already located), but it seems undue weight for the lead section. Neutralitytalk 02:03, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The Washington Post is not a "blog post". Jon698 (talk) 02:05, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * It's The Monkey Cage, which yes, is a blog hosted by the Washington Post. It's a good blog, but I don't see how a passing reference in a 2015 blog merits coverage in the lead section. The lead section is to "summarize the most important points" of a topic, and this is simply not one of the most important points. Neutralitytalk 02:10, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Criticism is a massively important part of any data series let alone any product. Jon698 (talk) 02:12, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I would be much more impressed, and inclined to think lead section treatment was appropriate, if we cited peer-reviewed journal articles or the university press-published works that critique the methodology, rather than advocacy group reports or blog posts from 2015. Neutralitytalk 02:22, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * "blog posts from 2015" aka something that appeared in The Washington Post and was written by an assistant professor. Time doesn't matter especially considering that they were on Polity IV at the time. Jon698 (talk) 02:28, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it's problematic that the lead to such a small article is devoted overwhelmingly to criticisms. It makes Polity seem fringe (when it's not), thus it's NPOV violation. In a fully fleshed out article, I wouldn't mind some mentions of the pros and cons of the dataset in the lead. There are a bunch of academic publications cited (footnotes 3–8 which can be used to flesh out the article). Snooganssnoogans (talk) 02:24, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I do not see how it is overwhelming devoted to criticism. One-third of the article is criticism and one-third of the lead mentions it. Also criticism in no way implies fringeness especially when earlier in the lead it explicitly states the common usage of the data series. Jon698 (talk) 02:31, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The third paragraph of the lead is also not entirely critical of the data series with "appropriate "for research that examines constraints on governing elites" being said by the assistant professor in praise of the data series in that aspect. Jon698 (talk) 02:35, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Also reference 8 which is entitled "How (not) to measure democracy" was added by Snooganssnoogans. This shows that the data series isn't without its criticism even in research articles. If it wasn't hidden behind a $200 paywall I would add from it. Jon698 (talk) 02:44, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Why is Iceland missing?
I know it's still a country ;-) but I don't see Iceland on the list and wonder why? Anyone??

gobears87 (talk) 21:02, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Incongruous scores, example Hungary
Some of the Polity IV scores are simply head scratchers to me, and I'm a retired political scientist. For example, how in 2018 could Hungary have been a full democracy? Orban became Prime Minister in 2010 and was working assiduously to destroy judicial independence and other centers of opposing views such as Central European University. A +10 score makes zero sense. How does the project justify this? 99.126.153.208 (talk) 06:01, 12 July 2024 (UTC)