This book assesses the interconnectedness of democracy and economic development. The author makes the argument that a quality-of-democracy understanding based on sustainable development relates crucially with economic growth, but more so with economic development.

1 Introduction: How to Conceptualize Democracy, Quality of Democracy in Global Comparison, and Democracy as Innovation Enabler.- 2 The Empirical Macro-Model: How to Measure Democracy and the Quality of Democracy in Global Comparison.- 3 Comparative Empirical Analysis of The OECD Countries: Freedom, Equality and Sustainable Development in The OECD countries (2002-2016).- 4 Comparative Empirical Analysis of The Non-OECD Countries: Freedom, Equality and Sustainable Development in The Non-OECD Countries (2002-2016).- 5 Comparative Empirical Analysis of Global Trends of The OECD and Non-OECD countries and of The Whole World: Freedom, Equality and Sustainable Development in The World (2002-2016).- 6 The Basic Dimension (Basic Conceptual Dimension) of Self-Organization (Political Self-Organization): Government/Opposition Cycles and Political Swings (Political Left/Right Swings), Peaceful Person Change of Head of Government and Peaceful Party Change ofHead of Government in Global Comparison (2002-2016 and 1990-2017).- 7 Conclusion: Summary and Formulation of Hypotheses for Further Research on Democracy, Quality of Democracy in Global Comparison and Democracy as Innovation Enabler.- Appendix to the Conceptualization and Measurement of Democracy and Quality of Democracy in Global Comparison / Indicators and Dimensions:  Documentation of Scores for Indicators and Dimensions (Sub-Dimensions):  Scores Transformed (Re-Scaled) to Value Ranges of 0-100.

This book assesses the interconnectedness of democracy and economic development. It concentrates on how to conceptualize and to measure democracy and quality of democracy in global comparison. The author makes the argument that a quality-of-democracy understanding based on sustainable development relates crucially with economic growth, but more so with economic development. The empirical macro-model focuses on approximately 151 countries and covers about a twelve-year period of 2002-2014, identifying the following basic dimensions as being relevant for further analysis: freedom, equality, control, sustainable development, and self-organization (political self-organization). Readers will appreciate the global perspective the work offers.

“This reviewer highly recommends reading this monograph to all fellow political scientists and students of democracy. Those who like digging into primary empirical data, playing with figures and appreciate the deductive way of reasoning, will be especially pleased with the book.” (Alexander Chvorostov, Democratization, Vol. 27 (5), 2020)“David Campbell has been carrying out research on quality of democracy and its conception and measurement now for several years. … Through this approach, the author offers a new form of understanding of how de­mocracy should be measured in a meaningful way. … This global approach to democracy seems to be so urgently needed and necessary for our current debates on the state and status of democracy worldwide.” (Matthias Keppel, OZP - Austrian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 48 (2), 2019)

The book develops a truly global and up-to-date perspective of democracy and quality of democracy. Advanced and emerging countries are being equally covered. The book not only addresses democracies, but also semi-democracies and non-democracies. In that sense the book is (will be) unique, because there is no comparable publication out there, addressing these issues in a world-wide perspective In its conceptual domain, the book refers to democracy and quality-of-democracy discourses, but will also cross refer to discourses in knowledge, sustainable development and innovation The book roots in theory (conceptualizing) on the one hand, but is also practically based, by developing empirical models (using indicators), on the other The book understands itself as a product and is standing in line with academic research, and can therefore also be used for teaching. But the book also supports practicioners in strategy, decision-making and problem-solving