V-Dem: Global Standards, Local Knowledge

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 high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles. 

We are a team of over 50 social scientists on six continents. We work with more than 3,000 country experts and a truly global International Advisory Board. Read more about the work we do here.

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V-Dem Democracy Report 2019 is online!

Main findings: 

  • The trend of autocratization continues, and almost one-third of the world’s population lives in countries undergoing autocratization – a substantial decline of democracy.
  • 24 countries are now severely affected by what is established as a “third wave of autocratization”. These countries include Brazil, India, the United States, as well as several Eastern European countries.
  • A majority of countries in the world remains democratic. 
  • The first ever model forecasting autocratization identifies the top-10 most at-risk countries: Philippines, Fiji, Mali, Hungary, Guatemala, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Tanzania. This is an invitation for action by the policy and practitioner communities.

Access the report here.

Policy Dialogue Day 2019 ”New Challenges to Democracy, Governance, and Peace” 

The annual policy dialogue conference bridges the gap between analysis and practice and aims to shed light on questions relating to democracy support and governance. The conference serves as a meeting platform for practitioners, policy makers, and academics. Read more.