An intra-party democracy index: Theory, design and a demonstration

This article presents a new index for a comprehensive and systematic measurement of the level of intra-party democracy (IPD). The proposed index is designed on the basis of a comparison with state-level democracy and previous attempts to measure IPD. It examines five dimensions: participation, representation, competition, responsiveness and transparency. The way each dimension is measured is explained and justified on the basis of the procedure of its design and democratic theory. Its application and potential contribution to the analysis of democracy and party politics is demonstrated through its use to comparatively evaluate the level of internal democracy in political parties in Israel; and through examining several hypotheses concerning the relationship between party characteristics and their level of IPD and the relationship between the various dimensions of IPD.