A conception of democracy that is anchored in clear democratic principles and mediating values helps provide a framework for high-quality democracy.

The Assessment Network

People expect their governments to deliver public services in an efficient manner that meets their needs and recognizes their human rights. People expect to be able to raise their concerns and to be listened to. This guide enables users to assess the degree to which public service delivery is subject to democratic accountability checks and, based on that knowledge, identify areas of concrete action for improvement.

The local level assessment network

The State of Local Democracy (SoLD) Assessment Framework is designed to facilitate a citizen-led and -owned approach to assessing the quality of democracy at the local level.

The Assessment Framework at the National Level

The State of Democracy Assessment Framework aims to assess the quality of democracy a the national level and can be used as a whole, in part or targeted at specific priority areas.

International IDEA implemented a State of Democracy assessment in South Korea as a pilot study in 2002. After 50 years in which South Korea has undergone profound social transformation from being one of the poorest countries in the world to becoming the forerunner of the Newly Industrializing Countries, it emerged how the economic miracle was possible at the expense of democracy and respect for human rights.

The State of Democracy assessment in Sri Lanka was part of the region-wide State of Democracy in South Asia report, the only regional report to date produced with the cooperation of experts from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The assessment was led by Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda, head of the Department of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Colombo.

The democracy assessment in the United Kingdom has been the forerunner of the current International IDEA methodology for democracy assessments. When the idea arose to systematically assess the UK's democracy in the 1980s, the UK Democratic Audit developed a methodology and the first assessment took place in 1992. International IDEA then proposed redesigning and expanding the original framework in order to create a universal tool for assessing the quality of democracy worldwide, which became the State of Democracy Assessment Framework.

Zambia's State of Democracy assessment project was launched in 2010. Organized by the Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP) and the Department of Political and Administrative Studies at the University of Zambia (UNZA), it marked the culmination of extended consultations with a broad range of stakeholders and partners about the need for an assessment.

International IDEA implemented a State of Democracy assessment in Italy as a pilot study in 2002. After a decade of relevant political changes, such as the reshaping of the political parties and a change in their relationship with interest groups; a large turnover in the political elite; institutional changes at the national, regional and provincial levels; and a profound involvement in the European Union, a group of academics—with the support of International IDEA—developed an assessment on the level of democracy in Italy.

The Philippines has implemented several democracy assessments, making this country the perfect example of how the State of Democracy Assessment (SoD) Framework can be customized to assess specific topics. For the Philippines, the framework was broken down into different areas—Rule of Law and Access to Justice; Minimizing Corruption; Economic and Social Rights; Free and Fair Elections; and the Democratic Role of Political Parties—to suit the country's context and to target specific issues that lacked systematic study in the past.