Different Types of Data and the Validity of Democracy Measures

Different measures of democracy rely on different types of data. Some exclusively rely on observational data, others rely on judgement-based data in the form of in-house coded indicators or expert surveys. A third set of democracy measures combines information from indicators based on different types of data, some of them also data from representative surveys of the mass public. This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these different types of data for the measurement of electoral and liberal democracy. The discussion is based on the premise that the main priorities must be to establish a high degree of concept-measure consistency, i.e. indicators capture relevant aspects of the core concept of interest in a precise and unbiased manner, and to provide high coverage. The basic argument of the article is that no type of data is superior to others in all respects. The article draws on examples from extant datasets to illustrate the tradeoffs and it offers suggestions about how to reduce some of the potential drawbacks

Mapping contemporary forms of autocracy

Die Verfasser bauen auf den Forschungen der letzten Jahre zur Ausdifferenzierung der Typen der Demokratie auf. Sie plädieren dafür, Autoritarismus und Totalitarismus auf der Grundlage von verbreiteten Definitionsmerkmalen von Demokratie, konkret politischer Partizipation und Rechtsstaatlichkeit, zu unterscheiden. Dazu nutzen sie die ausdifferenzierte Regimemessung des Transformationsindexes von Bertelsmann. Damit knüpfen die Autoren an eine Methode an, um autoritäre und totalitäre Regime mittels der Messung politischer und ziviler Freiheitsrechte zu unterscheiden. Die totalitären Autokratien werden demnach als extreme Autokratien abgegrenzt, die am weitesten entfernt von den liberalen Demokratien sind. Auf der Grundlage ihrer Typologie klassifizieren die Verfasser alle Staaten der Welt für das Jahr 2008. Zudem teilen sie die Regime auch nach der Art des Herrschaftsträgers in personalistische Herrschaften, Parteiherrschaften, Militärherrschaften und traditionelle Monarchien ein. (ICF2)'The preceding decades have witnessed a veritable mushrooming of new and elaborate typologies in the study of democracies. At the same time, non-democracies are mostly treated as a residual category that merits little attention. The authors argue that this conceptual neglect is both surprising and unfortunate. This is so because the very reasons for unpacking the overarching class of democracy also entail that the overarching class of autocracy should be unfolded. More particularly, the distinctions between different kinds of autocracies should add to, or be created in continuation of the property spaces of the extant typologies of democracy. Using the Bertelsmann Transformation Index, they provide an overview of the different types of autocracy that come into existence when ordering countries on the conventional defining attributes of democracy in this manner. Moreover, they expand the focus to an accompanying attribute of autocracy, viz. the character traits of the ruler(s). The aim of both exercises is to provide the descriptive footwork for treating distinctions between different forms of autocracy as either explanans or explanandum.' (author's abstract)

Demokratisk underskud. Mellemøsten i komparativt perspektiv

Landene i Mellemøsten demonstrerer komparativt set et stort demokratisk un-derskud i forhold til niveauet i de fleste andre verdensregioner, og den verdens-omspændende Tredje Demokratiseringsbølge har i stort omfang forbigået regio-nen. En global analyse af demokratiniveauet i perioden 2000 til 2004 viser, at en model baseret på strukturelle forklaringsfaktorer samlet indfanger de relative po-sitioner godt. Modernisering og naboskabsdemokrati har en positiv indvirkning på tilstedeværelsen af demokratiske praksisser, muslimsk og arabisk befolknings-flertal samt olieproduktion udviser en negativ samvariation, mens religiøs og et-nisk homogenitet ikke lader til at spille nogen generel rolle. Samlet set indfanger modellen de relative positioner godt. Resultaterne indikerer, at de fleste mellem-østlige lande er særdeles strukturelt underprivilegerede med hensyn til sandsyn-ligheden for fremvæksten af liberalt demokrati, hvilket illustrerer vanskeligheden ved internt og eksternt initierede demokratiseringsbestræbelser i regionen

Ultimate causes of state formation: the significance of biogeography, diffusion, and neolithic revolutions

"The timing of early state formation varies across the world. Inspired by Jared Diamond's seminal work, the authors employ large-n statistics to demonstrate how this variation has been structured by prehistoric biogeographical conditions, which have influenced the timing of the transition from hunter/ gatherer production to agriculture and, in turn, the timing of state formation. Biogeography structures both the extent to which societies have invented agriculture and state technology de novo, and the extent to which these inventions have diffused from adjacent societies. Importantly, they demonstrate how these prehistoric processes have continued to shape state formation by influencing the relative competitiveness of states until the near present." (author's abstract

Online Appendix to: Economic Crisis and the Breakdown of Democracy in the Interwar Years: a Reassessment

In this online appendix we investigate if the results presented in the main paper, 'Economic Crisis and the Breakdown of Democracy in the Interwar Years: A Reassessment', are robust to alternative modeling strategies, alternative configuration of control variables, alternative follow-up time, reduced (European) sample, alternative measure of the outcome variable, and the use of logistic regression instead of survival analysis. The robustness checks generally lend further support to our general conclusions

Demokrati og borgerkrig

Prominente studier af sammenhængen mellem demokrati og borgerkrig har hævdet, at risikoen for borgerkrigsudbrud er lige så lille for autokratier som for demokratier, og at den er størst for hybridregimer, der befinder sig i midten af det politiske regimespektrum. Vi genanalyserer sammenhængen mellem demokrati og borgerkrigsudbrud ved hjælp af Lexical Index of Electoral Democracy (LIED). Dette nye demokratimål gør os i stand til samtidigt at skelne mellem niveauer af elektoralt demokrati og distinkte regimetyper. I modsætning til tidligere studier viser vores globale statistiske analyse, at hybridregimer ikke udviser den største risiko for borgerkrigsudbrud. Det er snarere rene autokratier – forstået som politiske regimer, hvor der ikke afholdes nationale valg – der er mest udsatte for borgerkrigsudbrud, mens elektorale demokratier, som er karakteriseret ved konkurrencefyldte og inklusive valg, har den mindste risiko

V-Dem Comparisons and Contrasts with Other Measurement Projects

For policymakers, activists, academics, and citizens around the world the conceptualization and measurement of democracy matters. The needs of democracy promoters and social scientists are convergent. We all need better ways to measure democracy. In the first section of this document we critically review the field of democracy indices. It is important to emphasize that problems identified with extant indices are not easily solved, and some of the issues we raise vis-à-vis other projects might also be raised in the context of the V-Dem project. Measuring an abstract and contested concept such as democracy is hard and some problems of conceptualization and measurement may never be solved definitively. In the second section we discuss in general terms how the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project differs from extant indices and how the novel approach taken by V-Dem might assist the work of activists, professionals, and scholars.This research project was supported by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Grant M13-0559:1, PI: Staffan I. Lindberg, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation to Wallenberg Academy Fellow Staffan I. Lindberg, Grant 2013.0166, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; as well as by internal grants from the Vice-Chancellor’s office, the Dean of the College of Social Sciences, and the Department of Political Science at University of Gothenburg. We performed simulations and other computational tasks using resources provided by the Notre Dame Center for Research Computing (CRC) through the High Performance Computing section and the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at the National Supercomputer Centre in Sweden, SNIC 2016/1-382 and 2017/1-68. We specifically acknowledge the assistance of In-Saeng Suh at CRC and Johan Raber at SNIC in facilitating our use of their respective systems