Table 6.4

Political Institutions and the Qualities of Policies

Country by Policy Index level
Congress Capabilities Index
Judicial independence
Party system institutionalization
Party system nationalizationa
Programmatic parties
Development of civil service
VERY HIGH
Chile
High
4.60
65
0.90
8.00
0.59
HIGH
Brazil
High
3.90
59
0.64
2.00
0.68
Colombia
High
3.10
60
 
0.00
0.47
Costa Rica
Medium
3.80
61
0.85
1.00
0.49
El Salvador
Medium
2.90
66
0.83
7.00
0.11
Mexico
Medium
3.30
67
0.78
2.00
0.40
Uruguay
High
4.80
76
0.89
7.00
0.48
MEDIUM
Bolivia
Medium
1.70
56
0.71
0.00
0.24
Dominican Republic
Low
3.60
74
0.84
0.00
0.28
Honduras
Low
1.90
68
0.91
2.00
0.16
Peru
Low
1.90
53
0.50
0.00
0.16
LOW
Argentina
Low
1.80
62
0.59
2.00
0.50
Ecuador
Medium
1.90
53
0.74
1.00
0.18
Guatemala
Low
2.20
48
0.76
0.00
0.21
Nicaragua
Medium
1.60
70
0.88
8.00
0.19
Panama
Medium
2.20
67
0.78
0.00
0.08
Paraguay
Medium
1.40
64
0.73
1.00
0.16
Venezuela
Medium
1.20
55
0.61
0.00
0.37

a Adequate data for party system nationalization are not available for Colombia for 2002. For the case of Ecuador, party system nationalization data correspond to 1998.
Note: Cuntries are classified first according to their policy index values ("very high", "high", "medium" and "low"), and then alphabetically within these groupings. The values for each country on each variable are shaded such that dark blue represents "very high" or "high" values, light blue represents "medium" values and white (no shading) represents "low" values.
Sources: Stein and Tommasi (2005); Jones (2005); Zuvanic and Iacoviello (2005) and World Economic Forum (2004).