Research / Concepts
Concepts in political analysis.
Established ideas from political science and economics that help explain how political organisations, voters and institutions behave. Each is set out in plain language, with an interactive graphic and references to the original work.
Concepts describe general mechanisms. They do not describe or assess any particular party, government or election.
How measurement misleads
When numbers stop telling the truth.
Indicators are indispensable, but they can be managed for their own sake, and what is easy to count can crowd out what matters.
Concept Measurement
Goodhart's law
When a measure becomes a target, it can stop being a good measure. With an interactive comparison of an indicator used as a target and several measures used with judgement.
Read the conceptConcept Measurement
The McNamara fallacy
What is easy to measure can crowd out what matters. With a four-step animation of a dashboard that gradually loses sight of what it cannot count.
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Perspectives build on these ideas.
Polity Lab's Perspectives apply concepts like these to the way political organisations gather and use information.