Economic aspects of indexing democracy

Indices of democratic development are the important issue of contemporary political studies. Their calculation allows to rank countries by a set of parameters and, accordingly, to assess trends in political changes. In this context, some authors pay attention to the indicators of development of national economies. In general, when it comes to determining the type of political regime, it is necessary to consider the various dimensions (e. g. institutional, socio-cultural). To avoid conclusions based on incomplete information and focus on separate – institutional, cultural, or economic – aspects, it is necessary to use an interdisciplinary approach, which, in addition, allows to consider the maximum number of factors of sustainability of democratic trends. Considering the scholarly debate over the interdependence of political and economic development, the paper compares the indices of democracy with economic development estimates, as well as the Gross domestic product of the countries selected for consideration. Quantitative data were analyzed with the calculation of the corresponding correlation coefficients. Initially, the author identified the relationship between indicators of democratic development to obtain confirmation of the feasibility of further comparison. As the obtained coefficients for the selected group of countries are reliable, the methodology applied to the considered countries is valid for application for other regions for which the listed research institutions carry out evaluations. This allowed the use of democratic development indicators to compare them with assessments of market economy development. Accordingly, there is a correlation between democratic and economic development – indicators of democracy status, democracy index and ranking of countries on the democracy scale on the one hand, and the index of economic freedom, market economy status, indicators of institutional ranking of economic freedoms – one the other. Moreover, it is emphasized that theoretical generalizations about the relationship between democracy / democratization and the level of economic development should take into account not only the correlation between expert assessments, but also the relationship between democratization and GDP. On the other hand – such a relationship is nonlinear, and the conditions of democracy, external and internal factors, as well as the national context are significant. Key words: democracy, political regime, economic development, modernization theory, Gross domestic product.