Egalitarian political institutions strongly correlate with liberal democracy scores
Comparing Egalitarian political institutions index with Liberal democracy row, gaps filled across 173 countries, 1948–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.73
- Holding size constant
- +0.65
- Countries compared
- 173
- Period
- 1948–2025
What might link these
Both indicators likely reflect similar democratic ideals, but the partial correlation suggests population and GDP alone don't fully explain the link. A careful reader should note that correlation doesn't imply shared underlying drivers like historical development or cultural values.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. The high rank correlation could still be inflated by unmeasured confounders like colonial history or regional political trends.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.