The Bertelsmann Stiftung's Transformation Index (BTI) analyzes and evaluates the quality of democracy, a market economy, and political management in 137 developing and transition countries. It measures successes and setbacks on the path toward democracy based on the rule of law and a socially responsible market economy.
In-depth country reports provide the basis for assessing the state of transformation and persistent challenges and for evaluating the ability of policymakers to carry out consistent and targeted reforms. The BTI is the first cross-national comparative index that collects data to comprehensively measure the quality of governance during processes of transition.
The Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) survey addresses one of the most pressing questions facing the highly developed states of the OECD and the European Union in the 21st century: How can we achieve sustainable policy outcomes while ensuring that policy-making processes remain focused on long-term goals?
To answer this question, 41 countries of the OECD and the EU are assessed and compared on the basis of 157 quantitative and qualitative indicators. The qualitative assessment is carried out by more than 100 international experts from the academic community. These country reports are the result of a multiphase process of survey and validation. This allows successful examples of sustainable governance to be identified, along with corresponding policy and governance achievements.
The instrument is based on three pillars: the Sustainable Policies Index, which measures the sustainability of policy outcomes; the Robust Democracy Index, which measures the quality of democracy; and the Good Governance Index, which explores the extent to which a country’s institutional arrangements enhance the public sector’s capacity to act (“executive capacity”) as well as the extent to which citizens, NGOs and other organizations are endowed with the participatory competence to hold government accountable to its actions (“executive accountability”).