How Accurate and Meaningful are Indexes of Governing in the Middle East?

• In Event: States, State Capacity, and Development

Abstract

This research proposal explores the following question: How accurate and meaningful are indexes of governing in Middle Eastern countries? The paper focuses on three indexes, the World Governance Indicators (WGI) project, Freedom House and the Polity IV project. Other measures relating to relevant concepts, particularly those that measure democracy, may be dealt with in the paper if time and paper size permit.
With the increasing use of such indexes in studies of politics in the Middle East, the importance of this project is increasing. The Arab uprisings of 2011 have revealed new dimensions of the exercise of "authority/power" in the Arab countries in light of the nature of the power exercised on the ground, the violence practiced in the region and the emergence of many local actors, whether the tools of such actors violent or quiet, visible or hidden.
This paper assesses the methodologies adopted in these indexes from two main dimensions: the conceptual dimension and the empirical dimension. In terms of concepts, the paper asks the following questions: Is there a conflict between the indexes regarding conceptualization or is there conceptual equivalence? Are there discrepancies between the results of each index with respect to the same term or concept? Is the outcome of each index linked to the nature of the conceptualization process? What are the implications? In practice, the paper examines the question of whether the indexes reflect reality. It raises the following questions: Is there a conflict or discrepancy between the indexes at the empirical level? Does this affect the meaning and efficiency of these indexes? Do these indexes really measure the same reality? What explains these disparities, if any? What can the exercise of "power" in Middle Eastern countries after 2011 add to the reality that these indexes try to measure?
The methodology of this paper is to examine and compare the methods of these measures in the measurement of governance, and the corresponding criticisms, to see if they measure the same, and whether these concepts are equivalent, as well as whether comparisons are possible based on those concepts. The second part of the application requires studying the reality of the exercise of power in the Arab countries to determine whether the indicators of these measures reflect this reality actually, and monitor any discrepancies between them in this regard. The paper ends by presenting what this practice can add to theories and approaches to measuring governance and governance.

Author

• Abdel-Fattah Mady, Alexandria University