V-Dem Democracy Indices

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

0.900–1.000   0.800–0.899   0.700–0.799   0.600–0.699

0.500–0.599   0.400–0.499   0.300–0.399   0.200–0.299

0.100–0.199   0.000–0.099   No data

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Academic Freedom Index

References

1. "New index rates countries by degree of freedom for scholars".
2. 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. 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. "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. Mechkova, Valeriya; Pemstein, Daniel; Seim, Brigitte; Wilson, Steven (2021). Digital Society Survey Codebook (PDF). Digital Society Project.
15. 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

• Vanessa A. Boese, Markus Eberhardt: "Which Institutions Rule? Unbundling the Democracy-Growth Nexus", V-Dem Institute, Series 2022:131, February 2022.

• Max Fisher, "U.S. Allies Drive Much of World's Democratic Decline, Data Shows: Washington-aligned countries backslid at nearly double the rate of non-allies, data shows, complicating long-held assumptions about American influence". The New York Times. November 16, 2021.

External links

• Official website