Dichotomous variables make weighting dimensions impossible, forcing equal treatment

Evidence

Alvarez et al. (1996), who most clearly take a necessary and sufficient condition view of democracy, use no weighting, which is directly related to their use of dichotomous variables. Almost by definition dichotomous variables cannot be weighted (an argument against them); hence the use of dichotomous variables directly leads to unweighted dimensions. — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts, 314

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the trade-off between binary and graded coding that any index-builder faces; useful when evaluating democracy datasets.