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Begin New Search Political Geography Global Focus Publishing Institution Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)

1. What Makes Experts Reliable?

Author:
Kyle L Marquardt
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Many datasets use experts to code latent quantities of interest. However, scholars have not explored either the factors affecting expert reliability or the degree to which these factors influence estimates of latent concepts. Here we systematically analyze potential correlates of expert reliability using six randomly selected variables from a cross-national panel dataset, V-Dem v8. The V-Dem project includes a diverse group of over 3,000 experts and uses an IRT model to incorporate variation in both expert reliability and scale perception into its data aggregation process. In the process, the IRT model produces an estimate of expert reliability, which affects the relative contribution of an expert to the model. We examine a variety of factors that could correlate with reliability, and find little evidence of theoretically-untenable bias due to expert characteristics. On the other hand, there is evidence that attentive and condent experts who have a basic contextual knowledge of the concept of democracy are more reliable.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. How to Make Causal Inferences with Time-Series Cross-Sectional Data under Selection on Observables

Author:
Matthew Blackwell and Adam Glynn
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Repeated measurements of the same countries, people, or groups over time are vital to many fields of political science. These measurements, sometimes called time-series cross-sectional (TSCS) data, allow researchers to estimate a broad set of causal quantities, including contemporaneous and lagged treatment effects. Unfortunately, popular methods for TSCS data can only produce valid inferences for lagged effects under very strong assumptions. In this paper, we use potential outcomes to define causal quantities of interest in this settings and clarify how standard models like the autoregressive distributed lag model can produce biased estimates of these quantities due to post-treatment conditioning. We then describe two estimation strategies that avoid these post-treatment biases—inverse probability weighting and structural nested mean models—and show via simulations that they can outperform standard approaches in small sample settings. We illustrate these methods in a study of how welfare spending affects terrorism.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Self-Censorship in Authoritarian States: Response bias in measures of popular support in China

Author:
Daniel Robinson and Marcus Tannenberg
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
The study of popular support for authoritarian regimes, and the comparative study of political attitudes, has long relied on the assumption that survey respondents provide truthful answers on surveys. However, when measuring regime support in closed political systems there is a distinct risk that individuals are less than forthright due to fear that their opinions may be made known to the public or the authorities. In order to test this assumption, we conducted a novel web-based survey in China in which we included four list experiments of commonly used items in the comparative literature on regime support. We find systematic bias for all four measures as a result of selfcensorship; substantially more individuals state that they support the regime with direct questioning than do when presented with our anonymous, indirect list experiments. The level of self-censorship, which ranges from 16 to 22 percentage points, is considerably higher than previously thought. Selfcensorship is further most prevalent among the wealthy, urban, female and younger respondents. These findings indicate that prior studies that have found high levels of support for the Chinese regime using these particular measures likely overestimate the true level of support. Further, crossnational studies which compare popular support across regime type may be systematically biased if responses are not subject to the same level of falsification across regime types.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Introducing the Historical Varieties of Democracy Dataset: Political Institutions in the Long 19th Century

Author:
Carl Henrik Knutsen
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
The Historical Varieties of Democracy Dataset (Historical V-Dem) is a new dataset containing about 260 indicators, both factual and evaluative, describing various aspects of political regimes and state institutions. The dataset covers 91 polities globally – including most large, sovereign states, as well as some semi-sovereign entities and large colonies – from 1789 to 1920 for many cases. The majority of the indicators are also included in the Varieties of Democracy dataset, which covers the period from 1900 to the present – and together these two datasets cover the bulk of “modern history”. Historical V-Dem also includes several new indicators, covering features that are pertinent for 19thcentury polities. We describe the data, the process of coding, and the different strategies employed in Historical V-Dem to cope with issues of reliability and validity and ensure inter-temporal- and cross-country comparability. To illustrate the potential uses of the dataset we provide a descriptive account of patterns of democratization in the “long 19th century.” Finally, we perform an empirical investigation of how inter-state war relates to subsequent democratization.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. Reassessing the Democratic Peace: A Novel Test Based on the Varieties of Democracy Data

Author:
Håvard Hegre, Michael Bernhard, and Jan Teorell
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
The democratic peace is one of the most robust findings in international relations. Yet it suffers from two important limitations. First, even those who fully embrace the democratic peace have difficulty precisely identifying which facet of democracy drives the result. Second, the vast majority of studies have relied on a single measure of democracy – the Polity index. This paper reassesses interstate conflict on several new measures of democracy and their disaggregated components from the Varieties of Democracy project in a global sample of 173 countries from 1900–2010 (www.v-dem.net). We theorize three distinct mechanisms of constraint that may explain why some countries do not engage in military conflict with each other: formal vertical (e.g. elections), informal vertical (e.g. civil society activism), and horizontal accountability (e.g. interbranch constraint on the executive). We find that the formal vertical channels of accountability provided by elections are not as crucial as horizontal constraint and the informal vertical accountability provided by a strong civil society.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. On Revolutions

Author:
Armand M Leroi et al
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Sometimes the normal course of events is disrupted by a particularly swift and profound change. Historians have often referred to such changes as "revolutions" and, though they have identied many of them, they have rarely supported their claims with statistical evidence. Here we present a method to identify revolutions based on a measure of the multivariate rate of change called Foote Novelty. We dene revolutions as those periods of time when the value of this measure, F, can, by a non-parametric test, be shown to be signicantly greater than the background rate. Our method also identies conservative periods when the rate of change is unusually low. Importantly, our method permits searching for revolutions over any time scale that the data permit. We apply it to several quantitative data sets that capture long-term political, social and cultural changes and, in some of them, identify revolutions, both well known and not. Our method is a general one that can be applied to any phenomenon captured by multivariate time series data of sufficient quality.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. The Long March: Contentious Mobilization and Deep Democracy

Author:
Mohammad Ali Kadivar, Adaner Usmani, and Benjamin Bradlow
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Over the last several decades, dozens of authoritarian regimes have fallen and been replaced by formal democracies. These new democracies are not all of identical quality -- some have made substantially greater progress than others towards deepening democratic institutions. We make use of a new dataset which identifies five distinct dimensions of democratization in order to study this variation. We argue that prolonged unarmed contentious mobilization prior to transition drives democratic progress in each of these five dimensions. Mobilization matters because it generates a new, democratically-oriented political elite and because it furnishes non-elites with the capacity for autonomous collective action. In panel regressions spanning the 1950 to 2010 period and using original data, we show that the duration of antecedent anti-authoritarian mobilization is a significant and consistent predictor of subsequent democratic deepening. To illustrate the mechanisms, we present a historical analysis of democratic transition in Brazil. This case study shows how both formal political actors and non-elite collective actors, emboldened by prolonged mobilization, drove deepening of democracy post-transition.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. The Accountability Sequence: From De-jure to De-facto Constraints on Governments

Author:
Valeriya Mechkova, Anna Lührmann, and Staffan I. Lindberg
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Accountability is one of the cornerstones of good governance. Establishing accountable governments is a top priority on the international development agenda. Yet, scholars and democracy practitioners know little about how accountability mechanisms develop and thus can be supported by international and national actors. The present study tackles the questions of how, and in what sequence accountability sub-types develop. We consider not only vertical (elections and political parties) and horizontal accountability (legislature, judiciary and other oversight bodies), but also diagonal accountability (civil society and media) in both their de-jure and the de-facto dimensions. By utilizing novel sequencing methods, we study their sequential relationships in 173 countries from 1900 to the present with data from the new V-Dem dataset. Considering the long-term dimensions of institution building, this study indicates that most aspects of de-facto vertical accountability precede other forms of accountability. Effective institutions of horizontal accountability – such as vigorous parliaments and independent high courts – evolve rather late in the sequence and build on progress in many other areas.
Topic:
International Affairs and Governance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. Eroding Regimes: What, Where, and When?

Author:
Michael Coppedge
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
The political world lately seems to be filled with unexpected erosions of democracy. What is the most useful way to describe these phenomena? Do they all belong to a common syndrome? Certainly there are different degrees of erosion, but are there also different types? How common are such erosions in the world today? Is this a new phenomenon, or are there close parallels with events in the past? If we detect early warning signs of erosion, how concerned should we be that it will continue and culminate in the breakdown of democracy? This paper argues that there are two distinct erosion paths. First, there is a classic path of growing repression of speech, media, assembly, and civil liberties, combined with deteriorating political discourse. The second path involves the concentration of power in the executive at the expense of the courts and the legislature, similar to what Guillermo O’Donnell called “delegative democracy,” which entails the erosion of horizontal accountability. Venezuela emerges as the most extreme and most fully articulated instance of erosion along this second path
Topic:
International Affairs and Regime Change
Political Geography:
Global Focus

10. Party Institutionalization and Welfare State Development

Author:
Magnus Rasmussen and Carl Henrik Knutsen
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
We propose that the extent to which political parties are institutionalized shapes welfare state development. Institutionalized parties allow politicians to overcome coordination problems, avoid capture by special interests, and form stable linkages with broad social groups. These features both enable and incentivize politicians to pursue generous and universal welfare policies. Employing recent measures of party institutionalization and welfare law features, we test implications from our argument on data covering 169 countries and extending back to 1900. Even when accounting for country- and year-fixed effects and institutional features such as electoral system, regime type and state capacity, we find robust evidence that party institutionalization leads to more extensive, universal, and generous welfare arrangements. The relationship is more pronounced in democracies, but exists also in autocracies. When disaggregating party institutionalization and evaluating mechanisms, the linkages that institutionalized parties form with social groups constitute one important, but not the only relevant, factor.
Topic:
Democracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

11. Gender Diversity on High Courts

Author:
Nancy et al Arrington
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
ncreasing the diversity of political institutions is believed to improve the quality of political discourse and, subsequently, the quality of political outcomes. Moreover, the presence of diverse officials in positions of power signals the openness and fairness of political institutions. These benets of diversity should be particularly acute in the judiciary, where judges are tasked with the symbolically and substantively powerful duty of interpreting and defending constitutional values. Extant scholarship suggests that well-designed appointment process can promote diversity without explicitly gendered goals, much less quotas. If correct, these proposals raise the possibility of promoting greater diversity without having to resolve politically charged debates about quotas. Yet, scholars disagree about the effects of particular design choices. Worse, estimating causal effects of institutions in observational data is particularly difficult. We develop a research design linked to the empirical implications of existing theoretical arguments to evaluate the effect of institutional change on the gender diversity of peak courts cross-nationally. Speciffically, we consider the effect of an increase (or a decrease) in the number of actors involved in the appointment process. We find mixed results for any existing claim about the role of appointment institutions play in increasing diversity. Yet we also find that any institutional change seems to cause an increase in the gender diversity of peak courts.
Topic:
Gender Issues and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

12. Experts, Coders, and Crowds: An analysis of substitutability

Author:
Kyle L Marquardt
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Recent work suggests that crowd workers can replace experts and trained coders in common coding tasks. However, while many political science applications require coders to both and relevant information and provide judgment, current studies focus on a limited domain in which experts provide text for crowd workers to code. To address potential over-generalization, we introduce a typology of data producing actors - experts, coders, and crowds - and hypothesize factors which affect crowd-expert substitutability. We use this typology to guide a comparison of data from crowdsourced and expert surveys. Our results provide sharp scope conditions for the substitutability of crowd workers: when coding tasks require contextual and conceptual knowledge, crowds produce substantively different data from coders and experts. We also find that crowd workers can cost more than experts in the context of cross-national panels, and that one purported advantage of crowdsourcing - replicability - is undercut by an insuffcient number of crowd workers.
Topic:
Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Global Focus

13. Multiple Measurements, Elusive Agreement, and Unstable Outcomes in the Study of Regime Change

Author:
Hans Lueders and Ellen Lust
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
This comprehensive analysis of regime change indicators reveals that problems of conceptualization and measurement are major reasons why current research fails to draw compelling conclusions that foster cumulative knowledge. The paper first argues that even though the literature discusses the conceptualization of regime types at length, there is little attention to defining regime change. Furthermore, quantitative studies of regime change largely elide conceptual and measurement challenges. Second, although indicators of regime type are highly correlated, agreement between indicators of regime change is extremely low. Third, focal points such as elections and coups drive agreement among these indicators, suggesting that such measures often reflect notable events instead of regime change per se. Finally, a robustness check of nine articles on regime change published in top journals demonstrates that findings are often not robust to alternative indicators, implying that indicator choice influences the results of quantitative studies.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

14. State Capacity, Incumbent Turnover and Democratic Change in Authoritarian Elections

Author:
Carolien van Ham and Brigitte Seim
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Under what conditions do elections lead to democratization or conversely, sustain authoritarianism? State capacity may be a crucial intervening variable affecting the democratizing power of elections in authoritarian regimes. In regimes with limited state capacity, manipulating elections, co-opting elites, and repressing opposition is more difficult than in regimes with more extensive state capacity, rendering turnover in elections more likely in weak states. Yet, while increasing the chances of turnover, if the new incumbent has limited capacity to deliver public services and make policy changes after coming to power, democratic change is unlikely to be sustainable. Hence, state capacity may be a double-edged sword. This paper tests these expectations using Varieties of Democracy data for 460 elections in 110 authoritarian regimes from 1974 to 2012, and finds that state capacity is negatively associated with incumbent turnover but positively associated with democratic change after incumbent turnover in electoral authoritarian regimes.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15. Information and Revolution

Author:
Stephen Lloyd Wilson
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
How does the Internet affect authoritarian regimes? This article argues that while the Internet has made mass mobilization easier than ever, its spread has also counter-intuitively allowed savvy authoritarian regimes to become more stable than ever. For the population, higher technical literacy means a demonstrable decrease in transaction costs and thus a greater incidence of collective action. However, higher regime technical literacy gives authoritarians the capacity to monitor their populations and solve the dictator’s information problem, thus keeping their populations satisfied without needing to liberalize. The article compiles a new and original data set of measures of technical literacy across all states since the year 2000, and used a factor analysis approach to construct latent measures of population and regime technical literacy for all country-years. A large-n, cross-country empirical approach finds strong evidence of the theorized relationship between technical literacy and revolution.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16. The Autocratic Trust Bias: Politically Sensitive Survey Items and Self-censorship

Author:
Marcus Tannenberg
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Because of the perceived risk of repression some survey questions are likely sensitive in more autocratic countries while less so in more democratic countries. Yet, survey data on potentially sensitive topics are frequently used in comparative research despite concerns about comparability. In a novel approach to test the comparability of politically sensitive questions I employ a multilevel-analysis with more than 80 000 respondents in 36 African countries to test for systematic bias when the survey respondents believe (fear) that the government has commissioned the survey, as opposed to an independent research institute. The findings indicate that fear of the government induces a substantial and significant bias on questions regarding the citizen-state relationship in more autocratic countries, but not in more democratic countries. This has practical implications for the comparative use of survey data.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

17. The V-Dem Party Institutionalization Index: a new global indicator (1900-2015)

Author:
Fernando Bizzarro, Allen Hicken, and Dari Self
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Because levels of party institutionalization may affect the availability of good data, existing datasets have limited reliability and coverage. To overcome these problems, we introduce the V-Dem Party Institutionalization Index, the first global country-level index on the issue. It covers – as of May 2017 – 173 countries for 116 years (1900-2016). Its geographical coverage, timespan, and conceptual reach are larger than any existing alternative. We offer an additive index that measures the scope and depth of party institutionalization in a country every year. Scope is measured by the proportion of parties that reach a threshold of minimal institutionalization, while the linkages party establish with the masses and the elites define the depth. Exploring a set of well-known cases, we show that: the index has extensive face validity, is consistent across regime types, and is comparable to other established indicators of institutionalization.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18. Regimes In the World (RIW): A Robust Regime Type Measure based on V-Dem

Author:
Anna Lührmann, Staffan I. Lindberg, and Marcus Tannenberg
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Classifying political regimes has never been as difficult as in this day and age. Most regimes in the world now hold de-jure multiparty elections with universal suffrage. Yet, in some countries these elections ensure that political rulers are – at least somewhat – accountable to the electorate whereas in others they are a mere window dressing exercise for authoritarian politics. Hence, regime types need to be distinguished based on the de-facto implementation of democratic rules. To this end, researchers increasingly turn to expert-coded data sets such as the new Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset. Using V-Dem data, we propose an operationalization of four important regime types – closed and electoral autocracies; electoral and liberal democracies – with vast coverage (almost all countries form 1900 to 2016) and precision. Our new Regimes in the World (RIW) measure includes uncertainty estimates to identify countries in the grey zone between regime types and account for inter-coder disagreement. In cases of disagreement with other datasets (7-12% of the cases), we classify regimes with severe electoral manipulation and infringements of the political freedoms more frequently as electoral autocracies than other datasets, which suggests that our measure captures the opaqueness of contemporary autocracies better.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

19. Constraining Governments: New Indices of Vertical, Horizontal and Diagonal Accountability

Author:
Anna Lührmann, Kyle L Marquardt, and Valeriya Mechkova
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Accountability - constraints on the government’s use of political power - is one of the cornerstones of good governance. However, conceptual stretching and a lack of reliable measures have limited cross-national research and comparisons regarding the role of both accountability writ large and its different sub-types. To address this research gap, we use the V-Dem dataset and Bayesian statistical models to develop new ways to conceptualize and measure accountability and its core dimensions. We provide indices capturing the extent to which governments are accountable to citizens (vertical accountability), other state institutions (horizontal accountability) and the media and civil society (diagonal accountability), as well as an aggregate index that incorporates the three sub-types. These indices cover virtually all countries from 1900 to today. We demonstrate the validity of our new measures by analyzing trends from key countries, as well as by demonstrating that the measures are positively related to development outcomes such as health and education.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

20. V-Dem Comparisons and Contrasts with Other Measurement Projects

Author:
Michael Coppedge
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
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.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

21. Autocrats and Skyscrapers: Modern White Elephants in Dictatorships

Author:
Haakon Gjerlow and Carl Henrik Knutsen
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Political leaders often have private incentives to pursue expensive and socially wasteful "white elephant" projects. Our argument highlights that weak accountability mechanisms allow autocratic leaders to more easily realize such projects, whereas democratic leaders are more constrained from doing so. We subsequently test different implications from this argument by drawing on a global dataset recording various features of skyscrapers, a prominent type of modern white elephant. We find that autocracies systematically build more new skyscrapers than democracies, and this result is robust to controlling for income level, state control over the economy, and country- and year-fixed effects. Further, autocratic skyscrapers are more excessive and wasteful than democratic. Autocratic regimes also pursue skyscraper projects no matter if they preside over rural or urban societies. In contrast, skyscrapers are fewer and - when first built - associated with less waste in democracies, and they are more frequently built urbanized democracies than in rural.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

22. Democracy and Corruption: A Global Time-Series Analysis with V-Dem Data

Author:
Kelly McMann
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Theory predicts democracy should reduce corruption. Yet, numerous scholars have found empirically that corruption decreases at high levels of democracy but actually increases at low levels. A key weaknesses of studies that aim to explain this inverted curvilinear relationship, however, is that they do not disaggregate the complex concept of democracy. By contrast, this working paper disaggregates democracy theoretically and empirically. Our theoretical framework shows how components of democracy affect costs and benefits of engaging in corruption and, therefore, the level of corruption overall. Whereas other studies examine only how democratic accountability imposes costs on those engaging in corruption and thus illuminate only the downward curve of the relationship, we also examine the transaction costs and political support benefits of corruption and therefore can explain the initial uptick in corruption at low levels of democracy. Using measures of democratic components from Varieties of Democracy, we examine 173 countries from 1900 to 2012 and find that freedoms of expression and association exhibit the inverted curvilinear relationship with corruption, and that judicial constraints have a negative linear relationship. Moreover, the introduction of elections and the quality of elections act jointly, but each in a linear fashion. The mere introduction of elections increases corruption, thus accounting for the upward sloping segment of the inverted curve. Once the quality of elections be
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

23. Explaining the Erosion of Democracy: Can Economic Growth Hinder Democracy?

Author:
Aníbal Pérez-Liñán and David Altman
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Economic growth has become one of the leitmotivs academicians and pundits ask once and again to assess democratic endurance over time. While large portion of the literature posits that economic growth is positive for democracy (eg. Przeworski et al. 2000), for other scholars it is a profoundly destabilizing force (eg. Olson 1963; Huntington 1968). This paper fills these contrasting views asking whether economic growth can undermine democratic competition. We hypothesize that the relation between economic growth and party competition is mediated by the strength of political institutions and free expression. Economic growth promotes incumbency advantage. Rulers can artificially extend this advantage by narrowing the space for negative coverage and dissident voices as long as they have political room for maneuvering. We leverage exogenously-driven growth in Latin America to test this argument. Over the past two decades, the region experienced accelerated growth as a result of a global commodity boom. Using data for 18 Latin American countries during this period, we show that faster economic growth led to significant increases in incumbency advantage in the legislature only where free speech was under attack. Our findings have important implications for literatures on democratization, natural resources, and economic voting.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

24. IRT models for expert-coded panel data

Author:
Kyle L Marquardt and Daniel Pemstein
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Data sets quantifying phenomena of social-scientific interest often use multiple experts to code latent concepts. While it remains standard practice to report the average score across experts, experts likely vary in both their expertise and their interpretation of question scales. As a result, the mean may be an inaccurate statistic. Item-response theory (IRT) models provide an intuitive method for taking these forms of expert disagreement into account when aggregating ordinal ratings produced by experts, but they have rarely been applied to cross- national expert-coded panel data. In this article, we investigate the utility of IRT models for aggregating expert-coded data by comparing the performance of various IRT models to the standard practice of reporting average expert codes, using both real and simulated data. Specifically, we use expert-coded cross-national panel data from the V–Dem data set to both conduct real-data comparisons and inform ecologically-motivated simulation studies. We find that IRT approaches outperform simple averages when experts vary in reliability and exhibit differential item functioning (DIF). IRT models are also generally robust even in the absence of simulated DIF or varying expert reliability. Our findings suggest that producers of cross-national data sets should adopt IRT techniques to aggregate expert-coded data of latent concepts.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

25. The Effectiveness of Democracy Aid to Different Regime Types and Democracy Sectors

Author:
Anna Lührmann, Kelly McMann, and Carolien van Ham
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Large-N studies suggest that democracy aid is effective, while multiple small-N investigations call such findings into question. This paper accounts for this contradiction and significantly improves our understanding of democracy aid effectiveness by disaggregating democracy aid into specific types and examining effectiveness in different regime types. We argue that a specific type of aid is more likely to be effective when the aid does not pose a threat to regime survival and when the aid matches the particular democratic deficits in a country. Analysis of OECD aid and Varieties of Democracy data for 119 countries from 2002-2012 supports our argument.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

26. Neopatrimonialism and Democracy: An Empirical Investigation of Africa's Political Regimes

Author:
Rachel Sigman and Staffan I. Lindberg
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
One of the most common adjectives used to describe democracy in sub-Saharan Africa is "neopatrimonial". Characterized by strong executives, pervasive clientelism and use of state resources for political legitimation (Bratton and van de Walle 1997), neopatrimonial democracy has been (controversially) associated with a range of (mostly undesirable) social, political and economic outcomes. This paper offers an empirical assessment of neopatrimonialism in Africa's political regimes. We show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, African regimes vary both quantitatively and qualitatively in their embodiment of neopatrimonial rule. Moreover, we find no clear evidence indicating that neopatrimonialism necessarily impedes the advancement or survival of democracy
Topic:
Democracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

27. Local Democracy and Economic Growth

Author:
Carl Henrik Knutsen, John Gerring, and Svend-Erik Skaaning
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Theoretical work on the institutional sources of economic growth regards decentralization and democracy in a positive light. Despite this, empirical work shows that neither fiscal decentralization nor national democracy is a robust predictor of per capita GDP growth. We argue that these theories have failed to bear fruit because they ignore the linchpin of decentralization and democracy, namely local democracy. Democracy at a local level enhances economic growth by enabling decentralized policy selection and incentivizing local politicians to select policies that benefit economic development, including the provision of local public goods. We test for the relationship using a novel measure of local democracy with global coverage and time series extending from 1900 to the present. We find robust evidence that local democracy nurtures growth. This relationship holds up when accounting for country- and year-fixed effects, when controlling for democracy at the national level, and when we treat our measure of local democracy as an endogenous regressor. Additional tests reveal that the relationship is clearer in contexts where our argument suggests that it should operate more strongly, namely (national- level) democracies and in periods and regions where local-level institutions have a more pronounced role in policy-making.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

28. Suicide by Competition? Authoritarian Institutional Adaptation and Regime Fragility

Author:
Michael Bernhard, Amanda B Edgell, and Staffan I. Lindberg
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
While it is clear that contemporary authoritarian incumbents use democratic emulation as a strategy in the hopes of stabilizing and extending their tenure in power, this does not mean it is always effective. Indeed, an extant literature presents strong evidence that the opening of the pursuit of power to electoral competition can make authoritarianism vulnerable. Unless it is mediated by other factors, democratic emulation by authoritarian incumbents cannot simultaneously both stabilize their rule and make it more vulnerable to democratic transitions. These two literatures leave us with a set of contradictory generalizations. Some scholars argue that reiterated multiparty competitive elections present a gradual path from authoritarianism to democracy. Can they at the same time be a source of authoritarian stability? In this paper we seek to resolve this paradox by employing a unique combination of event history modeling to assess how experiences with multiparty elections influence patterns of authoritarian survival and transition in 108 countries from 1946-2010. Our results suggest that while authoritarian regimes face increasing odds of failure during the first three iterated multiparty and competitive election cycles, subsequent iterated cycles are far less dangerous to their survival. Given that few authoritarian regimes survive past three elections, these findings should be seen as more supportive of the democratization by elections thesis than democratic emulation as a way to enhance authoritarian survival.
Topic:
Authoritarianism and Democracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

29. Public Trust in Elections: The Role of Election Administration Autonomy and Media Freedom

Author:
Nicholas Kerr and Anna Lührmann
Publication Date:
09-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
As multiparty elections have become a global norm, scholars and policy experts regard public trust in elections as vital for regime legitimacy. However, very few cross-national studies have examined the consequences of electoral manipulation, including the manipulation of election administration and the media, on citizens’ trust in elections. This paper addresses this gap by exploring how autonomy of election management bodies (EMBs) and media freedom individually and conjointly shape citizens’ trust in elections. Citizens are more likely to express confidence in elections when EMBs display de-facto autonomy, and less likely to do so when media entities disseminate information independent of government control. Additionally, we suggest that EMB autonomy may not have a positive effect on public trust in elections if media freedom is low. Empirical findings based on recent survey data on public trust in 47 elections and expert data on de-facto EMB autonomy and media freedom support our hypotheses.
Topic:
Public Opinion, Media, and Post Truth Politics
Political Geography:
Global Focus

30. “Gimme Shelter”: The Role of Democracy and Institutional Quality in Disaster Preparedness

Author:
Tove Ahlbom and Marina Povitkina
Publication Date:
09-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Natural disasters cause suffering for millions of people around the globe every year and as climate change unfolds the likelihood of natural catastrophes is increasing. While weather shocks, such as earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods are beyond our control, a governments’ capacity to protect populations largely determines the degree of human suffering in disasters. Democracies, with freedom of speech, broad public participation and representation, are believed to protect their populations better than non-democratic regimes. However, democratic institutions are insufficient for securing protection from disasters in contexts of corruption, poor planning and public administration incompetence. We argue that the effect of democracy on the extent of human suffering in disasters is contingent on the ability of governments to implement their tasks or the quality of implementing institutions. We test this interaction hypothesis using time series cross-sectional data from the Varieties of Democracy project, the Quality of Government dataset and data from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. The results show that more democracy is associated with fewer people being affected by natural disasters only in settings where institutional quality is high. When institutional quality is low, more people seem to suffer in democracies than in authoritarian states.
Topic:
Disaster Relief, Authoritarianism, and Democracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

31. Democracy, Democratization, and Civil War

Author:
Suthan Krishnarajan, Jørgen Møller, Lasse Lykke Rørbæk, and Svend-Erik Skaaning
Publication Date:
08-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
An influential body of scholarship has associated both democracy and democratization with civil war. Important findings include the so-called inverted U-shaped relationship between democracy-levels and civil war onset and that propensity for democratic openings to spark internal violence. However, most of these findings have been challenged, particularly by scholars pointing to problems with the aggregate nature of the analyses and the data sources used. Against this background, we enlist new, fine-grained data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. We discuss how the new data can be used to disaggregate regime variables in order to better understand the causal dynamics that link the regime form and regime change to civil war onset, if any. Guided by these considerations, we use the new data to reassess the ‘inverted U-curve’. Our analysis shows that this relationship is driven by ‘liberal’ aspects of democracy such as freedom of assembly and freedom of speech rather than by the ‘electoral core’ of democracy. The relationship between clean elections and civil war onset is approximately linearly decreasing, and at the indicator level of the clean elections attribute we find several different patterns.
Topic:
Civil War, Democratization, and Democracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

32. Sequential Requisites Analysis: A New Method for Analyzing Sequential Relationships in Ordinal Data

Author:
Patrik Lindenfors, Joshua Krusell, and Staffan I. Lindberg
Publication Date:
08-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
This paper presents a new method inspired by evolutionary biology for analyzing longer sequences of requisites for the emergence of particular outcome variables across numerous combinations of ordinal variables in social science analysis. The approach involves repeated pairwise investigations of states in a set of variables and identifying what states in the variables that occur before states in all other variables. We illustrate the proposed method by analyzing a set of variables from version 6 of the V-Dem dataset (Coppedge et al. 2015a, b). With a large set of indicators measured over many years, the method makes it possible to explore long, complex sequences across many variables in quantitative datasets. This affords an opportunity, for example, to disentangle the sequential requisites of failing and successful sequences in democratization. For policy purposes this is instrumental: Which components of democracy are most exogenous and least endogenous and therefore the ideal targets for democracy promotion at different stages?
Topic:
Democracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus