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Journal’s Special Issue Is Devoted to the Berggruen Governance Index

Global Policy, an interdisciplinary journal pursuing public and private solutions to global problems and issues, today released a special issue focusing on the Berggruen Governance Index, a collaborative project between UCLA Luskin and the Berggruen Institute. The index is a tool for analyzing the Governance Triangle democratic accountability, state capacity and public goods provision — to better understand how governments can create a more resilient future for their people. Based on an analysis of 134 countries over a 20-year period, the index aims to demystify the intricacies of governance and shed light on how countries meet the needs of their populations over time. Helmut Anheier, adjunct professor of public policy and social welfare at UCLA Luskin and professor of sociology at the Hertie School in Berlin, is principal investigator of the Berggruen Governance Index. The special issue of Global Policy is organized into three parts. Part I offers an overview of the index and its implications, followed by regional and country-specific insights. Part II delves into detailed country and regional reports, examining key global powers and significant regions. Part III concludes the issue by summarizing a conference on governance indicator systems, surveying contributions from other projects, and presenting thoughts on the future of global governance indicators in an ever-changing and uncertain world. Articles in the special issue are open access and of interest to policy analysts, social scientists, and experts in government and international organizations.


 

Anheier on Long Road Back to a Stable Democracy

A front-page New York Times story on international allies’ concern that the United States is sliding away from its core democratic values cited Helmut Anheier, adjunct professor of social welfare and public policy. Scholars, officials and voters from both longstanding and emerging democracies expressed alarm about America’s direction, pointing to some citizens’ rejection of a peaceful transfer of power, attempts to block access to the ballot box and a Supreme Court that appears to be swayed by party politics. “It’s like watching a family member, for whom you have enormous affection, engage in self-harm,” one foreign leader said. Anheier, a principal investigator for the Berggruen Governance Index, a study of 134 countries in which America sits below Poland in quality of life, noted, “The United States did not get into the position where it is now overnight. It took a while to get there, and it will take a while to get out.”


 

Assessing the Health of American Democracy

A Washington Post article on different assessments of the stability of American democracy cited the 2022 Berggruen Governance Index, which tracks quality of life, governance and democracy in countries around the world. The article noted that the U.S. political status quo has triggered pessimism and despair, yet several countries still regard the United States as a bulwark of liberal democratic values. The recently released Berggruen Governance Index, a collaborative project of UCLA Luskin and the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute, identified significant declines in U.S. “state capacity” and “democratic accountability” over the past 20 years. “The steepness of the U.S.’s drop is unusual: Its path parallels Brazil, Hungary and Poland much more closely than that of Western Europe or the other wealthy Anglophone countries,” according to Markus Lang and Edward Knudsen, researchers who work with the governance index’s principal investigator, Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Helmut Anheier.


 

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