Varieties of Democracy

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a unique approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. The project provides a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of governance that goes beyond the mere presence of elections.

V-Dem distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian. These principles are measured through extensive data collections that include more than 450 specific indicators and over 50 different indices. These data cover the period from 1789 to the present for 202 countries and include a total of over 30 million data points[5].

The V-Dem project is one of the largest social science data collection projects in the world. It is led by a global team consisting of five Principal Investigators, 22 Project Managers, 33 Regional Managers, 134 Country Coordinators, and more than 3,700 researchers and experts from 180 countries. The headquarters of the V-Dem Institute, which handles administrative and coordinating tasks, is located at the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden[1][4][5].

V-Dem has developed innovative methods to aggregate expert judgments and produce valid and reliable estimates of hard-to-observe concepts. The data is collected through extensive online surveys among Country Experts, allowing for a nuanced analysis of democratic aspects in the countries. The methodology is continuously reviewed and adjusted to improve the quality of the V-Dem indicators and indices[1][3].

The main mission of V-Dem is to promote a comprehensive understanding of democracy and its various forms. The project aims to capture and measure the complexity of democracy in order to provide valuable insights to researchers, policymakers, and interested parties worldwide. V-Dem emphasizes the importance of transparency, reliability, and the inclusion of local expert knowledge to deliver accurate and trustworthy data[1][5].

V-Dem is engaged in various initiatives to promote democracy and human rights. These include the annual publication of the Democracy Report, the analysis of autocracy and democratization trends, and the examination of the impact of online disinformation on democratic institutions. These efforts contribute to a better understanding of the relationships between democracy and development and to the development of measures to strengthen democracy[4].

The V-Dem data and tools are freely accessible and provide user-friendly analysis tools that allow for the visualization of data in various forms. This facilitates researchers, policymakers, and interested parties in utilizing the data for their own purposes, thereby contributing to the promotion of democracy and human rights[5].

V-Dem is thus a central resource for anyone committed to the research and strengthening of democracy, offering a comprehensive and reliable dataset that reflects the diversity and complexity of democracy.

• 1 - https://www.v-dem.net/about/v-dem-project/
• 2 - https://www.v-dem.net/about/
• 3 - https://v-dem.net/media/publications/working_paper_123.pdf
• 4 - https://kellogg.nd.edu/research/major-research-initiatives/varieties-democracy-project
• 5 - https://www.gu.se/en/research/varieties-of-democracy-v-dem