The Varieties of Democracy (V–Dem) project relies on country experts who code a host of ordinal variables, providing subjective ratings of latent—that is, not directly observable—regime characteristics over time. Sets of ...

Political competition is generally regarded as one of the hallmarks of a well-functioning democracy. Competitive elections hold politicians to account, thereby increasing government performance to the benefit of citizens. ...

Party system institutionalization is regarded as a critical underpinning of democracies, but its role in non-democratic systems has been understudied. In this paper, we evaluate whether the concept has meaningful and perhaps ...

When voters form their political opinions and decide whom to vote for, they are confronted with at least two types of uncertainty. First, voters cannot be sure what reforms a political party will pursue once in office. ...

We discuss and analyze how regime type and state capacity shape the abilities and incentives of political leaders to respond to COVID-19. We argue that there is likely a complementary relationship between democracy and ...

Mass mobilization is an important driver of political change. While some citizens organize collective action in favor of more democratic institutions, others take to the streets to support authoritarian leaders or ...

Over the past two decades studies of the causal impact of ‘institutions’ and ‘democracy’ on economic prosperity have occupied a prominent position in the cross-country growth litera-ture and within economics more broadly. ...

Contestation and participation are commonly viewed as the two constituent dimensions of electoral democracy. How exactly have these two dimensions been conceptualized and measured in the literature? Are they empirically ...