Abstract
Measurement of the core concepts used in the study of politics has a great impact on our knowledge about politics. It affects the way we describe the world- and hence the questions that seem important to study-and the causal propositions we consider to be valid. Even more importantly, it affects the kind of advice political scientists offer on the key political and public policy issues of the day. Yet it is remarkable how little attention is given to the generation of data and the methodology of measurement. Indeed, it is fair to say that the mainstream view in political science is that measurement is a necessary task that should be quickly transcended or, if at all possible altogether skipped, so that researchers ' energies can focus on a task seen as much more important: the testing of causal hypotheses. The failure to acknowledge the importance of data generation and the methodology of measurement, and the propensity to take shortcuts, has severe costs. In a nutshell, it is associated with illusionary gains in knowledge, which sooner or later are questioned. Thus, it is time that political scientists become more suspicious of the tendency toward premature knowledge claims that is so pervasive in the discipline and put more emphasis on the measurement of key concepts as a foundation of knowledge, that is, as a task that affects the possibility of providing sound descriptive and/or causal analysis and, ultimately, of offering responsible advice.
Keywords:
methodology; democracy index