Regulation of Chief Executive Recruitment. Polity IV.
| Quick info | |
|---|---|
| Data type | Numeric |
| Scale | Multinomial |
| Value labels |
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| Technical name | regime_polity_xrreg |
| Category | Polity |
| Label | Regulation of Chief Executive Recruitment |
| Related indicators | |
The means through which the executive of a country comes into power. The Polity IV dataset contains three indicators of the structural characteristics by which chief executives are recruited: (1) the extent of institutionalization of executive transfers, XRREG; (2) the competitiveness of executive selection, XRCOMP; and (3) the openness of executive recruitment, XROPEN.
Regulation of Chief Executive Recruitment: In considering recruitment, we must first determine whether there are any established modes at all by which chief executives are selected. Regulation refers to the extent to which a polity has institutionalized procedures for transferring executive power.
Coding rules
Three categories are used to differentiate the extent of institutionalization:
(1) Unregulated: Changes in chief executive occur through forceful seizures of power. Such
caesaristic transfers of power are sometimes legitimized after the fact in noncompetitive
elections or by legislative enactment. Despite these "legitimization" techniques, a polity
remains unregulated until the de facto leader of the coup has been replaced as head
of government either by designative or competitive modes of executive selection.
However, unregulated recruitment does not include the occasional forceful ouster of a chief
executive if elections are called within a reasonable time and the previous pattern
continues.
(2) Designational/Transitional: Chief executives are chosen by designation within the
political elite, without formal competition (i.e., one-party systems or "rigged" multiparty
elections). Also coded here are transitional arrangements intended to regularize future
power transitions after an initial unregulated seizure of power (i.e., after constitutional
legitimization of military rule or during periods when the leader of the coup steps down as
head of state but retains unrivaled power within the political realm as head of the military).
This category also includes polities in transition from designative to elective modes of
executive selection (i.e., the period of "guided democracy" often exhibited during the
transition from military to civilian rule) or vice versa (i.e., regimes ensuring electoral victory
through the intimidation of oppositional leaders or the promulgation of a "state of
emergency" before executive elections).
(3) Regulated: Chief executives are determined by hereditary succession or in competitive
elections. Ascriptive/designative and ascriptive/elective selections (i.e., an effective king and
premier) are also coded as regulated. The fundamental difference between regulated selection and unregulated recruitment is that regulated structures require the existence of institutionalized modes of executive recruitment, either through constitutional decree or lineage. Moreover, in regulated competitive systems, unlike the designational/transitional mode, the method of future executive selection is not dependent on the particular party or regime currently in power
Bibliographic info
Citation: Marshall, Monty G., Ted Robert Gurr, and Keith Jaggers. 2017. Dataset Users’ Manual. Polity IV Project. Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2016. Center for Systemic Peace. [1].
Related publications: related publications
Misc
Project manager(s): project managers
Data release: data release
Revisions: revisions
Sources
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