Data for Politics: Creating an International Research Infrastructure Measuring Democracy

Staffan I Lindberg; Juraj Medzihorsky

doi:10.1016/j.patter.2020.100056

Data for Politics: Creating an International Research Infrastructure Measuring Democracy

Patterns (N Y). 2020 Jul 2;1(4):100056. doi: 10.1016/j.patter.2020.100056. eCollection 2020 Jul 10.

Authors

Staffan I Lindberg¹, Juraj Medzihorsky¹

Affiliation

¹ V-Dem Institute, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg 40530, Sweden.

Abstract

Questions such as how democratic a country is, how free are its media, or how independent is its judiciary are highly important to researchers and decision makers. We describe a research infrastructure that produces the world's largest dataset on democracy, governance, human rights, and related topics. The dataset is far more resolved and accurate than previous efforts, currently covers 202 political units from 1789 until the present, and is regularly updated each spring. The infrastructure involves an online survey of over 3,000 experts from 180 countries. Survey design and advanced statistical techniques are crucial for assuring data validity. The infrastructure also provides reports and analyses based on the data and easy-to-use tools for exploring and graphing the data.

Keywords: DSML 5: Mainstream: Data science output is well understood and (nearly) universally adopted.