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V-Dem Democracy Indices

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For overview of democracy indices, see Democracy indices.

The Democracy Indices by V-Dem are democracy indices published by the V-Dem Institute that describe qualities of different democracies. It is published annually.[1] In particular, the V-Dem dataset is popular among political scientists and describes the characteristics of political regimes. Datasets released by the V-Dem Institute include information on hundreds of indicator variables describing all aspects of government, especially on the quality of democracy, inclusivity, and other economic indicators.

Map of V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index for 2023

By 2020, the V-Dem index had "more than 470 indicators, 82 mid-level indices, and 5 high-level indices covering 202 polities from the period of 1789–2019".[2] V-Dem uses methodological tools to deal with the subject nature of ratings and their reliability.[2]

Democracy indices

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As of 2022, the V-Dem Institute published 483 indicators and republishes 59 other indicators.[3][4] V-Dem publishes five core indices with several other supplementary indices. The core indices are the electoral democracy index, the liberal democracy index, the participatory democracy index, the Deliberative Democracy Index and the egalitarian democracy index.[5]

The Electoral Democracy Index
This index measures the principle of electoral or representative democracy, including whether elections were free and fair, as well as the prevalence of a free and independent media. This index is part of all the other indices as a central component of democracy.[6]
Liberal Democracy Index
This index incorporates measures of rule of law, checks and balances, and civil liberties along with the concepts measured in the electoral democracy index.[6]
Participatory Democracy Index
This index measures the degree to which citizens participate in their own government through local democratic institutions, civil society organizations, direct democracy, and the concepts measured in the electoral democracy index.[6]
Deliberative Democracy Index
See also: deliberative democracy
This index measures the degree to which decisions are made in the best interest of the people as opposed to due to coercion or narrow interest groups, in addition to the basic electoral democracy index.[6]
Egalitarian Democracy Index
See also: political egalitarianism
This index measures the level of equal access to resources, power, and freedoms across various groups within a society, in addition to the level of electoral democracy.[6]

Rankings

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The table below shows V-Dem Democracy rankings published in 2024.[7][8][9]

V-Dem Democracy Indices (14th edition)
Country Democracy Indices Democracy Component Indices
Electoral Liberal Liberal Egalitarian Participatory Deliberative
  Denmark 0.915 0.883 0.977 0.972 0.716 0.967
  Ireland 0.896 0.831 0.933 0.875 0.634 0.905
  Estonia 0.895 0.845 0.955 0.887 0.638 0.85
  Belgium 0.895 0.814 0.909 0.931 0.648 0.91
  Switzerland 0.89 0.844 0.962 0.931 0.882 0.98
  New Zealand 0.886 0.831 0.95 0.866 0.703 0.831
  Norway 0.886 0.836 0.955 0.961 0.655 0.988
  Sweden 0.884 0.852 0.98 0.903 0.651 0.905
  Luxembourg 0.878 0.798 0.91 0.939 0.578 0.975
  France 0.877 0.81 0.93 0.811 0.632 0.939
  Czech Republic 0.871 0.805 0.933 0.913 0.585 0.88
  Costa Rica 0.868 0.816 0.953 0.886 0.648 0.945
  Finland 0.86 0.82 0.972 0.896 0.637 0.942
  Canada 0.856 0.755 0.882 0.777 0.648 0.822
  Germany 0.856 0.812 0.967 0.941 0.662 0.976
  Australia 0.854 0.804 0.957 0.832 0.704 0.921
  Netherlands 0.854 0.8 0.951 0.891 0.62 0.943
  United Kingdom 0.852 0.772 0.914 0.81 0.66 0.843
  Latvia 0.852 0.768 0.908 0.862 0.674 0.825
  United States 0.848 0.772 0.92 0.651 0.657 0.838
  Portugal 0.845 0.751 0.887 0.795 0.611 0.872
  Uruguay 0.845 0.77 0.922 0.821 0.768 0.849
  Austria 0.844 0.773 0.926 0.893 0.65 0.827
  Spain 0.843 0.757 0.902 0.841 0.645 0.828
  Argentina 0.84 0.69 0.803 0.769 0.616 0.696
  Chile 0.838 0.786 0.956 0.723 0.661 0.939
  Italy 0.837 0.757 0.911 0.904 0.747 0.911
  Iceland 0.834 0.744 0.896 0.87 0.659 0.845
  Slovakia 0.823 0.739 0.909 0.792 0.686 0.583
  Taiwan 0.823 0.722 0.878 0.913 0.751 0.897
  Japan 0.818 0.731 0.901 0.927 0.565 0.9
  Lithuania 0.798 0.735 0.938 0.868 0.692 0.822
  Jamaica 0.798 0.678 0.847 0.829 0.59 0.807
  Barbados 0.796 0.678 0.849 0.825 0.295 0.887
  Vanuatu 0.796 0.691 0.872 0.764 0.556 0.754
  Brazil 0.784 0.692 0.887 0.592 0.643 0.925
  Malta 0.779 0.64 0.807 0.894 0.653 0.803
  Cyprus 0.774 0.636 0.817 0.869 0.574 0.837
  Slovenia 0.758 0.653 0.864 0.884 0.71 0.867
  Cape Verde 0.754 0.648 0.863 0.725 0.538 0.695
  Trinidad and Tobago 0.753 0.635 0.84 0.788 0.577 0.928
  Suriname 0.753 0.631 0.837 0.713 0.572 0.773
  Greece 0.751 0.582 0.752 0.835 0.641 0.868
  Seychelles 0.743 0.659 0.894 0.831 0.288 0.942
  Croatia 0.733 0.639 0.879 0.768 0.625 0.68
  Panama 0.73 0.571 0.76 0.541 0.518 0.737
  Israel 0.723 0.634 0.889 0.762 0.603 0.759
  Moldova 0.713 0.608 0.86 0.8 0.665 0.93
  Colombia 0.704 0.565 0.793 0.528 0.648 0.695
  South Korea 0.703 0.604 0.863 0.863 0.61 0.844
  Peru 0.699 0.576 0.819 0.519 0.622 0.506
  East Timor 0.698 0.507 0.692 0.555 0.554 0.72
  South Africa 0.687 0.584 0.851 0.629 0.563 0.865
  Dominican Republic 0.685 0.438 0.577 0.46 0.595 0.837
  Nepal 0.681 0.523 0.742 0.592 0.614 0.555
  São Tomé and Príncipe 0.675 0.563 0.835 0.67 0.561 0.678
  Kosovo 0.674 0.494 0.702 0.685 0.524 0.6
  Romania 0.669 0.501 0.72 0.674 0.657 0.35
  Bulgaria 0.666 0.588 0.898 0.76 0.663 0.914
  Ghana 0.661 0.562 0.858 0.683 0.381 0.854
  Ecuador 0.646 0.467 0.689 0.488 0.759 0.54
  Namibia 0.646 0.519 0.792 0.425 0.486 0.706
  Lesotho 0.644 0.503 0.758 0.727 0.531 0.689
  The Gambia 0.641 0.517 0.798 0.659 0.592 0.728
  Liberia 0.639 0.436 0.638 0.561 0.469 0.836
  Armenia 0.634 0.422 0.611 0.811 0.442 0.69
  Solomon Islands 0.619 0.481 0.759 0.517 0.514 0.495
  Senegal 0.617 0.459 0.719 0.688 0.582 0.844
  Georgia 0.604 0.473 0.761 0.784 0.542 0.803
  Maldives 0.599 0.453 0.728 0.61 0.49 0.782
  Poland 0.588 0.444 0.729 0.877 0.555 0.719
  Bolivia 0.586 0.353 0.53 0.595 0.632 0.541
  Montenegro 0.581 0.467 0.785 0.771 0.561 0.759
  Malawi 0.58 0.485 0.83 0.479 0.567 0.753
  Sri Lanka 0.58 0.421 0.688 0.625 0.549 0.61
  Paraguay 0.579 0.426 0.697 0.315 0.535 0.493
  Kenya 0.564 0.456 0.789 0.59 0.603 0.833
  North Macedonia 0.56 0.359 0.584 0.598 0.61 0.64
  Botswana 0.558 0.434 0.753 0.658 0.432 0.587
  Indonesia 0.541 0.36 0.604 0.445 0.595 0.816
  Mexico 0.534 0.299 0.476 0.452 0.654 0.545
  Honduras 0.534 0.394 0.695 0.389 0.544 0.675
  Zambia 0.529 0.424 0.771 0.582 0.652 0.883
  Mongolia 0.527 0.405 0.732 0.607 0.398 0.769
  Bhutan 0.527 0.445 0.819 0.831 0.558 0.921
  Guyana 0.512 0.332 0.578 0.686 0.513 0.38
  Bosnia and Herzegovina 0.512 0.346 0.616 0.655 0.527 0.678
  Albania 0.51 0.402 0.75 0.706 0.555 0.444
  Malaysia 0.506 0.359 0.655 0.726 0.533 0.662
  Guatemala 0.505 0.309 0.536 0.294 0.489 0.46
  Fiji 0.504 0.41 0.779 0.638 0.432 0.78
  Benin 0.498 0.325 0.58 0.729 0.487 0.516
  Sierra Leone 0.497 0.384 0.728 0.642 0.585 0.912
  Nigeria 0.491 0.327 0.597 0.493 0.609 0.614
  Mauritius 0.479 0.36 0.696 0.729 0.57 0.809
  Papua New Guinea 0.475 0.383 0.761 0.493 0.527 0.524
  Madagascar 0.474 0.241 0.404 0.313 0.5 0.44
  Tunisia 0.472 0.301 0.558 0.813 0.548 0.766
  Ivory Coast 0.454 0.253 0.457 0.522 0.611 0.822
  Hungary 0.44 0.325 0.668 0.631 0.571 0.361
  Tanzania 0.435 0.39 0.844 0.708 0.532 0.777
  Philippines 0.43 0.287 0.581 0.334 0.567 0.749
  Guinea-Bissau 0.421 0.233 0.425 0.454 0.345 0.401
  Togo 0.416 0.215 0.409 0.626 0.477 0.735
  Ukraine 0.415 0.249 0.5 0.654 0.58 0.761
  Somaliland 0.404 0.247 0.508 0.28 0.509 0.507
  Singapore 0.403 0.331 0.735 0.81 0.134 0.738
  Niger 0.389 0.282 0.595 0.613 0.599 0.792
  El Salvador 0.388 0.111 0.151 0.315 0.469 0.261
  India 0.377 0.275 0.621 0.429 0.507 0.612
  Iraq 0.367 0.21 0.452 0.449 0.462 0.589
  Lebanon 0.364 0.237 0.529 0.503 0.472 0.667
  Serbia 0.364 0.253 0.579 0.747 0.55 0.486
  Mauritania 0.363 0.184 0.373 0.338 0.52 0.548
  Kyrgyzstan 0.358 0.199 0.432 0.582 0.392 0.367
  Mozambique 0.353 0.221 0.496 0.513 0.539 0.56
  Angola 0.349 0.173 0.358 0.293 0.179 0.367
  Pakistan 0.344 0.212 0.484 0.243 0.545 0.531
  Kuwait 0.333 0.313 0.8 0.58 0.186 0.66
  Democratic Republic of the Congo 0.317 0.122 0.244 0.353 0.398 0.631
  Central African Republic 0.302 0.1 0.189 0.282 0.306 0.373
  Cameroon 0.298 0.131 0.289 0.498 0.25 0.229
  Gabon 0.293 0.175 0.429 0.632 0.56 0.533
  Zanzibar 0.289 0.23 0.608 0.696 0.462 0.698
  Thailand 0.288 0.228 0.598 0.472 0.388 0.341
  Zimbabwe 0.288 0.174 0.436 0.36 0.532 0.543
  Turkey 0.287 0.113 0.245 0.53 0.416 0.195
  Kazakhstan 0.284 0.144 0.345 0.597 0.299 0.446
  Ethiopia 0.283 0.11 0.238 0.518 0.385 0.612
  Uganda 0.28 0.217 0.577 0.421 0.392 0.693
  Comoros 0.275 0.106 0.232 0.592 0.534 0.483
  Algeria 0.27 0.121 0.287 0.716 0.23 0.434
  Morocco 0.263 0.249 0.706 0.566 0.411 0.727
  Jordan 0.256 0.253 0.729 0.566 0.284 0.692
  Palestine (West Bank) 0.254 0.138 0.359 0.623 0.422 0.388
  Bangladesh 0.253 0.096 0.219 0.243 0.303 0.298
  Djibouti 0.253 0.122 0.303 0.528 0.397 0.387
  Republic of the Congo 0.245 0.119 0.305 0.34 0.546 0.562
  Mali 0.229 0.148 0.413 0.609 0.582 0.724
  Uzbekistan 0.215 0.081 0.2 0.449 0.173 0.445
  Rwanda 0.214 0.096 0.252 0.548 0.419 0.589
  Haiti 0.214 0.066 0.152 0.128 0.259 0.597
  Venezuela 0.211 0.055 0.115 0.285 0.482 0.067
  Burkina Faso 0.205 0.182 0.559 0.619 0.421 0.697
  Cambodia 0.198 0.057 0.13 0.219 0.371 0.187
  Libya 0.194 0.103 0.295 0.446 0.451 0.703
  Russia 0.19 0.062 0.151 0.396 0.379 0.2
  Egypt 0.189 0.129 0.388 0.317 0.211 0.303
  Azerbaijan 0.188 0.064 0.162 0.37 0.119 0.123
  Burundi 0.188 0.059 0.145 0.31 0.181 0.199
  Equatorial Guinea 0.183 0.057 0.14 0.327 0.113 0.1
  Guinea 0.18 0.088 0.253 0.388 0.424 0.22
  Cuba 0.176 0.058 0.151 0.771 0.236 0.3
  Somalia 0.172 0.136 0.429 0.29 0.251 0.734
  Oman 0.17 0.137 0.436 0.58 0.388 0.203
  Nicaragua 0.17 0.027 0.042 0.306 0.28 0.033
  Tajikistan 0.168 0.041 0.091 0.198 0.157 0.149
  Belarus 0.157 0.036 0.082 0.734 0.161 0.044
  Iran 0.156 0.082 0.246 0.5 0.079 0.186
  Hong Kong 0.154 0.124 0.401 0.721 0.131 0.17
  Turkmenistan 0.15 0.036 0.083 0.288 0.065 0.043
  Vietnam 0.149 0.114 0.372 0.662 0.563 0.613
  Chad 0.148 0.047 0.127 0.215 0.34 0.327
  Syria 0.146 0.054 0.153 0.167 0.137 0.056
  South Sudan 0.143 0.065 0.193 0.082 0.232 0.076
  Palestine (Gaza Strip) 0.136 0.07 0.219 0.582 0.357 0.202
  Sudan 0.135 0.046 0.132 0.208 0.279 0.163
  Laos 0.132 0.095 0.313 0.44 0.393 0.181
  Yemen 0.13 0.048 0.14 0.108 0.217 0.181
  Bahrain 0.129 0.054 0.165 0.391 0.122 0.209
  Eswatini 0.124 0.094 0.315 0.219 0.253 0.164
  United Arab Emirates 0.102 0.078 0.27 0.486 0.095 0.285
  Qatar 0.087 0.085 0.306 0.382 0.041 0.389
  North Korea 0.084 0.015 0.036 0.317 0.153 0.036
  Myanmar 0.081 0.016 0.044 0.207 0.314 0.221
  Afghanistan 0.075 0.03 0.101 0.112 0.03 0.093
  China 0.074 0.037 0.129 0.315 0.124 0.382
  Eritrea 0.068 0.01 0.025 0.439 0.028 0.109
  Saudi Arabia 0.015 0.046 0.184 0.446 0.087 0.249

Impact and usage

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Countries autocratizing (red) or democratizing (blue) substantially and significantly (2010–2020). Countries in grey are substantially unchanged.[10]

A variety of other organizations use V-Dem's dataset in the construction of their indicators.[11][12] The World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators also use V-Dem's data to inform their Control of Corruption indicator (includes V-Dem's Corruption index), Rule of Law Indicator (includes V-Dem's liberal component index), and the Voice and Accountability Indicator (includes V-Dem's Expanded freedom of expression, freedom of association, and Clean elections indicators).[12]

Digital Society Project

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The Digital Society Project is a subset of indicators on V-Dem's survey that asks questions about social media's political status and the internet.[6] Specifically, the Digital Society Project measures a range of questions related to internet censorship, misinformation online, and internet shutdowns.[13] This annual report includes 35 indicators assessing five areas: disinformation, digital media freedom, state regulation of digital media, the polarization of online media, and online social cleavages.[14][15] It has been updated each year starting in 2019, with data covering from 2000–2021.[14] Similar to other expert analyses like Freedom House, these data are more prone to false positives when compared with remotely sensed data, such as that from Access Now or the OpenNet Initiative.[15]

Criticisms

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This section is an excerpt from Democracy indices § Critiques of measures of democracy.[edit]
Data on democracy, and particularly global indices of democracy, have been scrutinized and criticized by various scholars. Gerardo L. Munck and Jay Verkuilen questioned various aspects of the data produced by Freedom House and Polity, such as the concept of democracy they measured, the design of indicators, and the aggregation rule.[16] Political scientists Andrew T. Little and Anne Meng "highlight measurement concerns regarding time-varying bias in expert-coded data" such as Freedom House and V-Dem and encourage improving expert-coding practices.[17] Knutsen et al.[18] did not see evidence for time-varying bias in their expert-coded data and note the application of item response theory, factor analysis and estimates of uncertainties to limit expert biases while discussing concerns in operationalization of observer-invariant measures of democracy.

Political scientist Jonas Wolff criticized V-Dem for gradually abandoning a pluralist conceptualization of democracy. According to him, V-Dem has moved away from its original emphasis on the conceptual varieties of democracy and adopted an uncontested view of democracy as liberal democracy while also ignoring the limitations of liberal democracy.[19]

The V-Dem dataset does not cover some countries, namely: Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Brunei, Dominica, Federated States of Micronesia, Grenada, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Nauru, Palau, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Tonga, Tuvalu, and the Vatican.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "New index rates countries by degree of freedom for scholars".
  2. ^ a b Hegedüs, Daniel (2020). "Varieties of Democracy: Measuring Two Centuries of Political Change. By Michael Coppedge, John Gerring, Adam Glynn, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Staffan I. Lindberg, Daniel Pemstein, Brigitte Seim, Svend-Erik Skaaning, and Jan Teorell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 226p. $99.99 cloth". Perspectives on Politics. 18 (4): 1258–1260. doi:10.1017/S1537592720003059. ISSN 1537-5927. S2CID 230623566.
  3. ^ "New democracy dataset to 'revolutionize' democracy research". 8 January 2016.
  4. ^ Tucker, Joshua. "Open data and (15 million!) new measures of democracy". Washington Post.
  5. ^ Coppedge, Michael; John Gerring; Carl Henrik Knutsen; Staffan I. Lindberg; Jan Teorell; Kyle L. Marquardt; Juraj Medzihorsky; Daniel Pemstein; Nazifa Alizada; Lisa Gastaldi; Garry Hindle; Johannes von Römer; Eitan Tzelgov; Yi-ting Wang; and Steven Wilson. 2020. "V-Dem Methodology v10". Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Coppedge, Michael; John Gerring; Carl Henrik Knutsen; Staffan I. Lindberg; Jan Teorell; David Altman; Michael Bernhard; Agnes Cornell; M. Steven Fish; Lisa Gastaldi; Haakon Gjerløw; Adam Glynn; Allen Hicken; Anna Lührmann; Seraphine F. Maerz; Kyle L. Marquardt; Kelly McMann; Valeriya Mechkova; Pamela Paxton; Daniel Pemstein; Johannes vonRömer; Brigitte Seim; Rachel Sigman; Svend-Erik Skaaning; Jeffrey Staton; Aksel Sundtröm; EitanTzelgov; Luca Uberti; Yi-ting Wang; Tore Wig; and Daniel Ziblatt (2021). "V-Dem Codebook v11". Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. Archived 8 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine.
  7. ^ Democracy Report 2024, Varieties of Democracy
  8. ^ "The V-Dem Dataset". V-Dem Institute. 2024. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  9. ^ Coppedge, Michael; Gerring, John; Glynn, Adam; Knutsen, Carl Henrik; Lindberg, Staffan I.; Pemstein, Daniel; Seim, Brigitte; Skaaning, Svend-Erik; Teorell, Jan; Altman, David; Bernhard, Michael; Bizzarro, Fernando; Krusell, Joshua; Maguire, Matthew; Marquardt, Kyle; McCann, Kelly; Mechkova, Valeriya; Miri, Farhad; Pernes, Josefine; Staton, Jeffrey; Stepanova, Natalia; Tzelgov, Eitan; Wang, Yi-Ting (2020). Varieties of Democracy. doi:10.1017/9781108347860. ISBN 978-1-108-34786-0.
  10. ^ Nazifa Alizada, Rowan Cole, Lisa Gastaldi, Sandra Grahn, Sebastian Hellmeier, Palina Kolvani, Jean Lachapelle, Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F. Maerz, Shreeya Pillai, and Staffan I. Lindberg. 2021. Autocratization Turns Viral. Democracy Report 2021. University of Gothenburg: V-Dem Institute. https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/74/8c/748c68ad-f224-4cd7-87f9-8794add5c60f/dr_2021_updated.pdf.
  11. ^ USAID (2020). FY 2021 USAID Journey to Self-Reliance Country RoadmapMethodology Guide. https://selfreliance.usaid.gov/docs/FY_2021_USAID_Journey_to_Self-Reliance_Country_Roadmap_Methodology_Guide.pdf.
  12. ^ a b "WGI-Documents". The World Bank. Retrieved 2021-06-27.
  13. ^ Mechkova, Valeriya; Daniel Pemstein; Brigitte Seim; & Steven Wilson. (2020). Digital Society Project Dataset v2.Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. http://digitalsocietyproject.org/.
  14. ^ a b Mechkova, Valeriya; Pemstein, Daniel; Seim, Brigitte; Wilson, Steven (2021). Digital Society Survey Codebook (PDF). Digital Society Project.
  15. ^ a b Fletcher, Terry; Hayes-Birchler, Andria (2020-07-30). Comparing Measures of Internet Censorship: Analyzing the Tradeoffs between Expert Analysis and Remote Measurement. Data for Policy 2020.
  16. ^ Gerardo L. Munck and Jay Verkuilen, “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Indices,” Comparative Political Studies. 35, 1 (2002): 5–34. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.469.3177&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
  17. ^ Little, Andrew T.; Meng, Anne (2024-01-11). "Measuring Democratic Backsliding". PS: Political Science & Politics. 57 (2): 149–161. doi:10.1017/S104909652300063X. ISSN 1049-0965.
  18. ^ Knutsen, Carl Henrik; Marquardt, Kyle L.; Seim, Brigitte; Coppedge, Michael; Edgell, Amanda B.; Medzihorsky, Juraj; Pemstein, Daniel; Teorell, Jan; Gerring, John; Lindberg, Staffan I. (2024-01-11). "Conceptual and Measurement Issues in Assessing Democratic Backsliding". PS: Political Science & Politics. 57 (2): 162–177. doi:10.1017/S104909652300077X. ISSN 1049-0965.
  19. ^ Wolff, Jonas (2022-07-06). "From the Varieties of Democracy to the defense of liberal democracy: V-Dem and the reconstitution of liberal hegemony under threat". Contemporary Politics. 29 (2): 161–181. doi:10.1080/13569775.2022.2096191. ISSN 1356-9775. S2CID 250372421.

Further reading

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