Measuring governance in three dimensions.
The Berggruen Governance Index Project (BGI) analyzes the relationship between democratic accountability, state capacity and the provision of public goods. It builds upon prior work that examined the impact of governance and democracy on the quality of life. It is a collaborative project between the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and the Berggruen Institute.
The Governance Triangle
The 2026 Index consists of three major dimensions: Democratic Accountability, State Capacity, and Public Goods Provision. All three contain more specific subindices, which are formed by aggregating individual indicators. Each dimension interacts with the other two to form the overall governance picture. Our analytical model sees Democratic Accountability as affecting both Public Goods Provision and State Capacity, which in turn also shapes Public Goods Provision.
Each dimension is measured by aggregating individual indicators into subindices, which then form the three dimension scores. We have been careful to only select indicators that are regularly updated and available over long periods of time. For the aggregation of subindices and indices, we use Bayesian latent variable models. Our dataset covers the 2000–2023 period and includes 145 countries.
UCLA Team
Helmut Anheierprincipal investigator
Joseph SaracenoProject Manager & data scientist
Edward Knudsenresearch associate
Regina A. ListeditorHelmut K. Anheier is Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare, and Professor of Sociology at the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany. He served as President of the Hertie School from 2009 to 2018, held a Chair of Sociology at the Max-Weber-Institute of Heidelberg University and served as founding Academic Director of the Centre for Social Investment and Innovation. He is the Academic Co-Director of the Dahrendorf Forum, a joint initiative by the Hertie School and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research centers on social innovation, nonprofits, civil society and philanthropy; governance; cultural policy; organizational studies; and indicator systems. Anheier was the principal academic lead of the Governance Report (Oxford University Press), and is editor-in-chief of Global Perspectives (University of California Press). Anheier is author of over 500 publications, many in leading journals and with top university presses. He has received various national and international awards. He received his doctorate from Yale University in 1986, was a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Policy Studies, Professor of Public Policy and Social Welfare at UCLA , Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University. Before embarking on an academic career, he served as Social Affairs Officer at the United Nations.
Joseph is an experienced researcher who has conducted and managed studies across academic, industry, and government contexts. He holds a Ph.D in Political Science & International Relations and a Master’s degree in Applied Economics and Econometrics both from the University of Southern California (USC), and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from UCLA. His doctoral research utilized novel quantitative methods to evaluate the representation of marginalized groups within American political institutions and has been published in Journal of Politics, The Forum, and other peer-reviewed outlets. Prior to joining the Luskin School of Public Affairs, he worked as quantitative researcher at Meta (formerly Facebook) and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Edward Knudsen is a Research Associate for the Dahrendorf Forum and Affiliate Research Fellow at the Jacques Delors Centre. His focus is on transatlantic politics and economics. At the Hertie School, he has worked on projects examining comparative soft power for the German Foreign Office and has served as editorial assistant for the journal Global Perspectives. Previously, he worked in the “US and the Americas Programme” at Chatham House on projects that explored the future of transatlantic economic and security relations. He also conducted research in economic history at the University of California, Berkeley, and Humboldt University in Berlin. He holds a master’s in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a bachelor’s degree with majors in history and economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests include the historical origins of economic ideas, linkages between economic policy and security policy and the future of transatlantic relations.
Regina is an independent editor, researcher and writer with many years of experience in coordinating multicountry, multiresearcher projects and pulling together edited volumes, textbooks and similar complicated publications. Among other positions, she was Managing Editor of the Governance Report series, housed at the Hertie School (Berlin) and published by Oxford University Press, and Manager and Regional Research Coordinator for the Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project at the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. She earned a master’s in International Development from American University (Washington, D.C.) and a bachelor’s in political science and Spanish from University of Tennessee (Knoxville, Tennessee).
The Advisory Board
The BGI is guided by a Board comprising experts in governance, indicator systems, and relevant subfields. Current members include Nabil Fahmy (American University, Cairo), Mohammed Ibrahim (Mo Ibrahim Foundation), Francis Fukuyama (Stanford), Margaret Levi (Stanford), John Micklethwait (Bloomberg), Gary Segura (UCLA Luskin), Anne-Marie Slaughter (New America), Michael Woolcock (World Bank), and Xue Lan (Tsinghua University).
About the Berggruen Institute
The Berggruen Institute’s mission is to develop foundational ideas and shape political, economic, and social institutions for the 21st century. Providing critical analysis using an outwardly expansive and purposeful network, we bring together some of the best minds and most authoritative voices from across cultural and political boundaries to explore fundamental questions of our time. Our objective is enduring impact on the progress and direction of societies around the world. To date, projects inaugurated at the Berggruen Institute have helped develop a youth jobs plan for Europe, fostered a more open and constructive dialogue between Chinese leadership and the West, strengthened the ballot initiative process in California, and launched Noema, a new publication that brings thought leaders from around the world together to share ideas. In addition, the Berggruen Prize, a $1 million award, is conferred annually by an independent jury to a thinker whose ideas are shaping human self-understanding to advance humankind.
