Stay updated with breaking news from York magazinesaid. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
The Myth of Measuring Democracy How academics launder partisanship as political science Getty Images Aaron Sibarium • May 11, 2021 5:00 am On April 5, two weeks after Georgia passed its controversial voting law, Voxpublished a provocative headline: Study: Republican control of state government is bad for democracy. The study, Laboratories of Democratic Backsliding, was conducted by the University of Washington’s Jake Grumbach and outlines a comprehensive measure of democratic health based on 61 different factors. The best predictor of a low democracy score, Grumbach found, was Republican control of state legislatures, leading him to conclude that the GOP is the main driver of democratic backsliding in the United States. He’s hardly alone; plenty of political scientists reached the same conclusion, using similar methodology, throughout the Trump era. ....