The Berggruen Governance Index is founded on the premise that the key to good governance is to achieve a good balance between democratic accountability (quality of democracy), state capacity (quality of governance) and public goods provision (quality of life) (Anheier, Lang and Knudsen 2022). This “triangle” theory implies that all three of these dimensions need to be strong and resilient for good governance to exist. The index examines the interaction between the three pillars in 135 countries between 2000 and 2019, giving each country a score between 0 and 100 based on their score against each primary dimension and three sub-dimensions, which can be compared against other countries.
The subdimensions of each are:
- democratic accountability: institutional
accountability; electoral accountability;
societal accountability - state capacity: fiscal capacity; coordination
capacity; delivery capacity - public goods provision: social public goods;
economic public goods; environmental
public goods