Freedom House’s combined ratings proxy democracy with weak capacity content

Evidence

Remembering that higher scores are less democratic, then, think of the multiple Political Rights Civil Liberties as a rough measure of democracy, mildly tinged by governmental capacity. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 454

Categorization

• XREF: Tilly criticizing a standard democracy index for neglecting capacity — connects to the reader’s own register debate and to measures like V-Dem used by institutionalists. — connects to: Low-capacity democracies are rare and historically short-lived; Freedom House ratings measure democracy but never governmental capacity directly — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 453