Party ideology and clientelistic linkage

How does parties' ideology affect their linkage strategies? While scholars maintain that economically right wing parties are more clientelistic, there has been no systematic study testing this argument. We examine the conservative ideology-clientelism nexus with multi-level quantitative analyses of parties' clientelistic appeals. Our analysis reveals a robust, yet nuanced relationship between ideology and clientelism. Specifically, right wing parties are more clientelistic than left wing parties, but only with regard to providing broad economic rents to clients. In contrast, economically conservative parties are not more likely to engage in individual targeted clientelism. Moreover, parties' ties with economic interests mediate the relationship between ideology and clientelism. Finally, the association between parties' linkage to business interests and rents clientelism is attenuated by country-level economic liberalism

Evaluating and Improving Item Response Theory Models for Cross-National Expert Surveys

The data produced by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project contains ordinal ratings of a multitude of country-level indicators across space and time, with multiple experts providing judgments for each country-year observation. We use an ordinal item response theory (O-IRT) model to aggregate multiple experts' ratings. The V-Dem data provide a challenging domain for such models because they exhibit little cross-national bridging. That is, few coders provide ratings for multiple countries, making it difficult to calibrate the scales of estimates cross-nationally. In this paper, we provide a systematic analysis of the issue of bridging. We first use simulations to explore how much bridging one needs to achieve scale identification when coders' thresholds vary across countries and when the latent traits of some countries lack variation. We then examine how posterior predictive checks can be used to check cases of extent of scale non-comparability. Finally, we develop and evaluate search algorithms designed to select bridges that are most likely allow one to correct scale incompatibility problems.This research was supported, in part, by National Science Foundation Grant SES-1423944, PI: Daniel Pemstein, and by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Grant M13-0559:1, PI: Staffan I. Lindberg, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

The V-Dem Measurement Model: Latent Variable Analysis for Cross-National and Cross-Temporal Expert-Coded Data

The Varieties of Democracy (V–Dem) project relies on country experts who code a host of ordinal variables, providing subjective ratings of latent—that is, not directly observable— regime characteristics over time. Sets of around five experts rate each case (country-year observation), and each of these raters works independently. Since raters may diverge in their coding because of either differences of opinion or mistakes, we require system- atic tools with which to model these patterns of disagreement. These tools allow us to aggregate ratings into point estimates of latent concepts and quantify our uncertainty around these point estimates. In this paper we describe item response theory models that can that account and adjust for differential item functioning (i.e. differences in how experts apply ordinal scales to cases) and variation in rater reliability (i.e. random error). We also discuss key challenges specific to applying item response theory to expert-coded cross-national panel data, explain the approaches that we use to address these challenges, highlight potential problems with our current framework, and describe long-term plans for improving our models and estimates. Finally, we provide an overview of the different forms in which we present model output

The V-Dem Measurement Model: Latent Variable Analysis for Cross-National and Cross-Temporal Expert-Coded Data

The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project relies on country experts who code a host of ordinal variables, providing subjective ratings of latent- that is, not directly observable- regime characteristics over time. Sets of around five experts rate each case (country-year observation), and each of these raters works independently. Since raters may diverge in their coding because of either differences of opinion or mistakes, we require systematic tools with which to model these patterns of disagreement. These tools allow us to aggregate ratings into point estimates of latent concepts and quantify our uncertainty around these point estimates. In this paper we describe item response theory models that can that account and adjust for differential item functioning (i.e. differences in how experts apply ordinal scales to cases) and variation in rater reliability (i.e. random error). We also discuss key challenges specific to applying item response theory to expert-coded cross-national panel data, explain the approaches that we use to address these challenges, highlight potential problems with our current framework, and describe long-term plans for improving our models and estimates. Finally, we provide an overview of the different forms in which we present model output.This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (SES-1423944, PI: Daniel Pemstein), Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Grant M13-0559:1, PI: Staffan I. Lindberg), the Swedish Research Council (2013.0166, PI: Staffan I. Lindberg and Jan Teorell), the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (PI: Staffan I. Lindberg), and the University of Gothenburg (E 2013/43); as well as 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. Marquardt acknowledges research support from the Russian Academic Excellence Project ‘5-100.’ 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, SNIC 2017/1-406 and 2017/1-68). We specifically acknowledge the assistance of In-Saeng Suh at CRC and Johan Raber and Peter Mu ̈nger at SNIC in facilitating our use of their respective systems

V-Dem: A New Way to Measure Democracy

In the last few decades, Western governments have spent huge sums of money to promote democracy abroad. We do not know which, if any, of these programs actually work. If we cannot measure democracy in sufficient detail and with the necessary nuance, we cannot mark its progress and setbacks or affect its future course. While distinguishing the most democratic countries from the least democratic ones is fairly easy, it has proven to be much harder to make finer distinctions. Here we present a new effort aimed at measuring democracy, the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem)

Varianter på demokrati Dataset - Version 8 Land-År: V-Dem Förlängas

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a new approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. We provide a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the simple presence of elections. The V-Dem project distinguishes between five highlevel principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles. V-Dem draws on theoretical and methodological expertise from its worldwide team to produce data in the most objective and reliable way possible. Approximately half of the indicators in the V-Dem dataset are based on factual information obtainable from official documents such as constitutions and government records. The other half consists of evaluative indicators on topics like political practices and compliance with de jure rules. On such issues, typically five experts provide ratings. V-Dem works closely with leading social science research methodologists and has developed a state of the art Bayesian Item Response Theory measurement model that, to the extent possible, minimizes coder error and addresses issues of comparability across countries and over time. V-Dem also draws on the team’s academic expertise to develop theoretically informed techniques for aggregating indicators into mid- and high-level indices. In this sense, V-Dem is at the cutting edge of developing new and improved methods of social science measurement.Varianter på demokrati (V-Dem) är ett internationellt forskningsprojekt vars syfte är att ta fram nya indikatorer på demokrati, i alla världens länder från år 1789 fram till idag. V-Dem erbjuder ett nytt sätt att konceptualisera och mäta demokrati, och särskiljer mellan fem demokratiprinciper: val-, liberal-, deltagar-, deliberativoch jämlikhetsdemokrati, och samlar in data för att mäta dessa