In 2002, Polity V (2018) assessed Pakistan as being an anocracy, or mixed
regime, and Freedom House (2002) said its polity was military, giving her status
‘not free’ . This is due to a military regime that began in 1998 by General Pervez
Musharraf (Freedom House, 2002). Resultingly, Polity V scored XRCOMP and
XROPEN at 0, and XCONST at 2, representing near unlimited authority for the
executive. Freedom House (2002) agrees, describing Pakistan as having limited
transparency and accountability, but already showing differences in the
democracy scores. Polity V (2018) scored India at 9, democracy, consistently
for all years. Freedom House (2023) judges India as a multi-party democracy
until 2021, where her status drops to partly free, due to violence and
discrimination towards the Muslim population, a factor not measured on Polity
V indices. Bangladesh, as with Pakistan, has also experienced political crises
and states of emergency being declared. In 2007, the military had an increased
role in maintaining law and order, but it was not a military coup as it was in
Pakistan (Freedom House, 2023). Difference in measures between Freedom
House and Polity V is most apparent with Bangladesh, scoring similarly with
Pakistan on Freedom House but being 13 points lower on Polity V. This
demonstrates how the point assigning methods of Polity V can distort the
overall picture, as scoring well in some areas, brings the regime score up,
making the country appear more democratic than it is. This is also demonstrated
in the scores for Pakistan, both measures agree the country holds regular
elections, but only Freedom House acknowledges that the elections are
vulnerable to military interference.
The Polity V conceptualisation of democracy is minimalist and procedurally
focused (Centre for Systemic Peace, 2018). Freedom house has a substantive
view of democracy, outcomes focused, which contrasts Polity V. Varieties of
Democracy (2023) conceptualisation of democracy is broad and states that the
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