The Usefulness of the Index Method for the Analysis of the Relevance of Political Parties
The Usefulness of the Index Method for the Analysis of the Relevance of Political Parties

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to present a critical overview of research methods (so called indexes) used for measuring different parameters of party systems. The starting point for further discussion is the semantic relevance theory developed by G. Sartori. In the next part of the article I will deal with the question whether this qualitative method can be quantified in any way. With this regard, I will analyse such indexes as: the effective number of parties index, the power indexes and the government relevance indexes. The article shows that despite many scholars’ fears, political science has a large set of tools for making precise measurements of empirical data, which may be used for comparison. A theoretical concept of relevance, together with its “qualitative” test, combined with properly selected and configured quantitative techniques, guarantee the effective measurement of relevance also at the ordinal, or even the interval level. Thus, it is legitimate to refer to this approach as an “index method.

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