My working paper on why opinion-based global indices on issues like democracy & freedom have reduced India's rankings/scores since 2014. The paper investigates three well-known Western think-tanks and found laughably shallow, opaque methodologies 1/n
eacpm.gov.in
eacpm.gov.in
Problem is that these opinions find their way into concrete things into sovereign ratings through the World Bank's WGI index.The growing calls for ESG scores in investment/trade decisions will give opinion-based indices even greater currency. It is time to demand transparency 2/n
These indices are based on opinions of 3-6 "experts". EIU claims to use a ground survey, but has not done one for India since 2012. And the questions are so vague that it not possible to give objective scores even for a country, let alone across countries 3/n
Moreover, many relevant questions are just not asked. Surely it is relevant to ask for a democracy index if head of state is elected. Such a question would immediately downgrade many European countries as they as constitutional monarchies (also NZ AU CN etc). But never asked 4/n
There is even an index on direct democracy that is meant for a small country like Switzerland. India & US get a zero! Even Afghanistan does better! 5/n
The clout of a tiny cabal of Western think-tanks in this space is a form of neo-colonialism. It needs to be challenged. At the very least, World Bank should ask for transparency from indices used in WGI 6/n
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