The Democracy Indices by V-Dem are a dataset that describe qualities of different governments published by V-Dem Institute. This dataset is published on an annual basis and is publicly available and free.[1] In particular, the V-Dem dataset is popular among political scientists and describes the characteristics of political regimes worldwide. In total, 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. An R package automatically bundles new data.[2]
The V-Dem Institute's measures of democracy are the most elaborate and granular among several democracy indexes (such as the Polity data series and Freedom House's Freedom in the World).[3] 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".[3] Each indicator is coded independently by at least five country experts.[3] V-Dem uses methodological tools to deal with rating reliability and confidence intervals in the expert ratings.[3] Political scientist Daniel Hegedus describes V-Dem as "the most important provider of quantitative democracy data for scholarly research".[3]
The Regimes of the World (RoW)[4][5] distinguishes four types of political systems: closed autocracies, electoral autocracies, electoral democracies, and liberal democracie, this classification is built on V-Dem Democracy Core indices.[6]
The V-Dem institute publishes, as of 2022, 483 indicators unique to V-Dem institute and republishes 59 other indicators.[7][8] 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.[9]
Map of V-Dem's 2023 Index of Liberal Democracy[10]
Red indicates more authoritarian, green indicates more democratic.
The V-Dem institute publishes several other[which?] indices which are created, in part, with the assistance of other V-Dem indices.
The table below shows how countries score on the 5 high-level V-Dem Democracy indices in 2023.[10]
Country | Electoral Democracy | Liberal Democracy | Participatory Democracy | Deliberative Democracy | Egalitarian Democracy |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Denmark | 0.916 | 0.889 | 0.702 | 0.877 | 0.878 |
Norway | 0.899 | 0.857 | 0.645 | 0.872 | 0.86 |
Sweden | 0.899 | 0.87 | 0.643 | 0.806 | 0.816 |
Switzerland | 0.898 | 0.851 | 0.801 | 0.863 | 0.834 |
Estonia | 0.893 | 0.847 | 0.619 | 0.754 | 0.798 |
Ireland | 0.889 | 0.824 | 0.634 | 0.808 | 0.792 |
New Zealand | 0.889 | 0.834 | 0.67 | 0.779 | 0.786 |
Belgium | 0.887 | 0.825 | 0.633 | 0.812 | 0.823 |
Luxembourg | 0.881 | 0.797 | 0.584 | 0.839 | 0.822 |
France | 0.874 | 0.803 | 0.602 | 0.806 | 0.753 |
Spain | 0.873 | 0.791 | 0.618 | 0.765 | 0.724 |
Costa Rica | 0.871 | 0.821 | 0.627 | 0.821 | 0.771 |
Finland | 0.861 | 0.816 | 0.612 | 0.792 | 0.779 |
Australia | 0.858 | 0.814 | 0.614 | 0.786 | 0.726 |
Germany | 0.857 | 0.807 | 0.615 | 0.816 | 0.792 |
Czech Republic | 0.853 | 0.784 | 0.565 | 0.74 | 0.772 |
Netherlands | 0.852 | 0.8 | 0.58 | 0.804 | 0.765 |
Slovakia | 0.851 | 0.779 | 0.612 | 0.605 | 0.702 |
Canada | 0.847 | 0.739 | 0.6 | 0.715 | 0.669 |
Portugal | 0.846 | 0.753 | 0.58 | 0.737 | 0.723 |
Italy | 0.844 | 0.766 | 0.668 | 0.768 | 0.775 |
United Kingdom | 0.843 | 0.766 | 0.603 | 0.73 | 0.705 |
Japan | 0.833 | 0.736 | 0.537 | 0.744 | 0.761 |
Taiwan | 0.831 | 0.725 | 0.66 | 0.734 | 0.745 |
Argentina | 0.823 | 0.642 | 0.56 | 0.642 | 0.642 |
Latvia | 0.821 | 0.73 | 0.583 | 0.689 | 0.695 |
United States of America | 0.819 | 0.741 | 0.582 | 0.711 | 0.582 |
Iceland | 0.819 | 0.732 | 0.6 | 0.714 | 0.73 |
South Korea | 0.812 | 0.732 | 0.539 | 0.682 | 0.698 |
Chile | 0.811 | 0.755 | 0.571 | 0.758 | 0.619 |
Uruguay | 0.804 | 0.715 | 0.639 | 0.662 | 0.632 |
Slovenia | 0.799 | 0.704 | 0.579 | 0.702 | 0.685 |
Jamaica | 0.797 | 0.695 | 0.529 | 0.678 | 0.659 |
Lithuania | 0.797 | 0.741 | 0.588 | 0.648 | 0.687 |
Austria | 0.794 | 0.7 | 0.556 | 0.671 | 0.71 |
Trinidad and Tobago | 0.784 | 0.666 | 0.503 | 0.713 | 0.629 |
Greece | 0.783 | 0.6 | 0.536 | 0.684 | 0.659 |
Malta | 0.782 | 0.641 | 0.555 | 0.634 | 0.692 |
Barbados | 0.782 | 0.666 | 0.331 | 0.687 | 0.651 |
Cyprus | 0.777 | 0.644 | 0.479 | 0.63 | 0.672 |
Vanuatu | 0.771 | 0.656 | 0.483 | 0.615 | 0.596 |
Suriname | 0.77 | 0.653 | 0.498 | 0.606 | 0.579 |
Seychelles | 0.761 | 0.675 | 0.325 | 0.688 | 0.634 |
Moldova | 0.752 | 0.642 | 0.52 | 0.674 | 0.582 |
Cape Verde | 0.75 | 0.647 | 0.466 | 0.618 | 0.565 |
Peru | 0.744 | 0.627 | 0.517 | 0.444 | 0.455 |
Croatia | 0.738 | 0.648 | 0.507 | 0.587 | 0.577 |
Panama | 0.729 | 0.556 | 0.432 | 0.56 | 0.445 |
Israel | 0.723 | 0.65 | 0.473 | 0.612 | 0.591 |
Timor-Leste | 0.695 | 0.504 | 0.432 | 0.497 | 0.434 |
South Africa | 0.692 | 0.581 | 0.43 | 0.598 | 0.479 |
Senegal | 0.69 | 0.532 | 0.386 | 0.563 | 0.517 |
Colombia | 0.689 | 0.541 | 0.47 | 0.537 | 0.381 |
Romania | 0.689 | 0.547 | 0.499 | 0.35 | 0.482 |
Bulgaria | 0.688 | 0.613 | 0.486 | 0.588 | 0.546 |
Sao Tome and Principe | 0.684 | 0.578 | 0.429 | 0.521 | 0.488 |
Dominican Republic | 0.679 | 0.465 | 0.46 | 0.605 | 0.369 |
Brazil | 0.678 | 0.523 | 0.424 | 0.448 | 0.324 |
Ecuador | 0.657 | 0.5 | 0.462 | 0.461 | 0.41 |
Georgia | 0.647 | 0.504 | 0.408 | 0.532 | 0.515 |
Nepal | 0.646 | 0.501 | 0.427 | 0.394 | 0.419 |
Armenia | 0.645 | 0.445 | 0.401 | 0.502 | 0.54 |
Malawi | 0.642 | 0.538 | 0.406 | 0.511 | 0.382 |
Lesotho | 0.641 | 0.504 | 0.401 | 0.493 | 0.505 |
Liberia | 0.634 | 0.461 | 0.35 | 0.428 | 0.41 |
Namibia | 0.634 | 0.507 | 0.381 | 0.463 | 0.323 |
Ghana | 0.633 | 0.543 | 0.316 | 0.526 | 0.47 |
The Gambia | 0.62 | 0.496 | 0.395 | 0.458 | 0.421 |
Solomon Islands | 0.618 | 0.476 | 0.366 | 0.359 | 0.343 |
Kosovo | 0.618 | 0.463 | 0.36 | 0.414 | 0.432 |
Mexico | 0.598 | 0.346 | 0.4 | 0.358 | 0.331 |
Bolivia | 0.597 | 0.348 | 0.417 | 0.354 | 0.4 |
Maldives | 0.583 | 0.44 | 0.323 | 0.43 | 0.402 |
Paraguay | 0.581 | 0.433 | 0.354 | 0.346 | 0.252 |
Botswana | 0.577 | 0.462 | 0.375 | 0.378 | 0.399 |
Sri Lanka | 0.575 | 0.412 | 0.343 | 0.328 | 0.369 |
Poland | 0.574 | 0.425 | 0.353 | 0.358 | 0.494 |
Indonesia | 0.574 | 0.422 | 0.385 | 0.487 | 0.316 |
Mongolia | 0.566 | 0.431 | 0.293 | 0.434 | 0.38 |
Sierra Leone | 0.559 | 0.424 | 0.362 | 0.508 | 0.394 |
Honduras | 0.556 | 0.402 | 0.35 | 0.377 | 0.253 |
North Macedonia | 0.551 | 0.365 | 0.369 | 0.371 | 0.364 |
Bhutan | 0.535 | 0.434 | 0.328 | 0.495 | 0.446 |
Guyana | 0.535 | 0.365 | 0.312 | 0.26 | 0.38 |
Bosnia and Herzegovina | 0.528 | 0.365 | 0.318 | 0.355 | 0.366 |
Kenya | 0.522 | 0.425 | 0.36 | 0.449 | 0.353 |
Mauritius | 0.521 | 0.385 | 0.336 | 0.455 | 0.409 |
Zambia | 0.518 | 0.433 | 0.352 | 0.462 | 0.321 |
Niger | 0.511 | 0.382 | 0.329 | 0.461 | 0.354 |
Montenegro | 0.501 | 0.404 | 0.3 | 0.389 | 0.401 |
Madagascar | 0.495 | 0.259 | 0.293 | 0.283 | 0.217 |
Nigeria | 0.49 | 0.32 | 0.327 | 0.322 | 0.266 |
Albania | 0.484 | 0.409 | 0.3 | 0.273 | 0.355 |
Papua New Guinea | 0.458 | 0.366 | 0.275 | 0.273 | 0.268 |
Benin | 0.45 | 0.305 | 0.266 | 0.297 | 0.35 |
Hungary | 0.445 | 0.337 | 0.294 | 0.213 | 0.324 |
Malaysia | 0.438 | 0.304 | 0.255 | 0.323 | 0.339 |
Ivory Coast | 0.437 | 0.239 | 0.304 | 0.399 | 0.258 |
Guatemala | 0.435 | 0.263 | 0.259 | 0.239 | 0.174 |
Philippines | 0.431 | 0.283 | 0.287 | 0.36 | 0.193 |
Togo | 0.426 | 0.239 | 0.273 | 0.359 | 0.313 |
Lebanon | 0.426 | 0.258 | 0.248 | 0.319 | 0.26 |
Singapore | 0.425 | 0.339 | 0.121 | 0.356 | 0.361 |
Somaliland | 0.421 | 0.261 | 0.257 | 0.262 | 0.172 |
Ukraine | 0.406 | 0.234 | 0.273 | 0.351 | 0.317 |
Fiji | 0.406 | 0.267 | 0.215 | 0.303 | 0.282 |
India | 0.399 | 0.306 | 0.262 | 0.295 | 0.235 |
Tanzania | 0.398 | 0.359 | 0.264 | 0.334 | 0.348 |
Mauritania | 0.395 | 0.163 | 0.26 | 0.28 | 0.133 |
Pakistan | 0.388 | 0.26 | 0.256 | 0.32 | 0.156 |
Kyrgyzstan | 0.382 | 0.228 | 0.204 | 0.284 | 0.232 |
El Salvador | 0.378 | 0.147 | 0.218 | 0.149 | 0.144 |
Guinea-Bissau | 0.371 | 0.152 | 0.171 | 0.194 | 0.217 |
Gabon | 0.369 | 0.209 | 0.252 | 0.282 | 0.28 |
Iraq | 0.362 | 0.197 | 0.195 | 0.222 | 0.187 |
Mozambique | 0.362 | 0.243 | 0.229 | 0.225 | 0.244 |
Serbia | 0.361 | 0.265 | 0.25 | 0.231 | 0.316 |
Angola | 0.344 | 0.174 | 0.112 | 0.163 | 0.145 |
Democratic Republic of the Congo | 0.337 | 0.154 | 0.186 | 0.275 | 0.182 |
Central African Republic | 0.321 | 0.17 | 0.131 | 0.17 | 0.155 |
Ethiopia | 0.319 | 0.152 | 0.168 | 0.258 | 0.22 |
Kuwait | 0.317 | 0.301 | 0.101 | 0.267 | 0.236 |
Tunisia | 0.307 | 0.223 | 0.223 | 0.293 | 0.305 |
Cameroon | 0.297 | 0.137 | 0.122 | 0.122 | 0.191 |
Burkina Faso | 0.295 | 0.219 | 0.183 | 0.273 | 0.23 |
Uganda | 0.285 | 0.2 | 0.18 | 0.262 | 0.173 |
Zimbabwe | 0.285 | 0.186 | 0.215 | 0.215 | 0.189 |
Comoros | 0.284 | 0.115 | 0.206 | 0.191 | 0.226 |
Zanzibar | 0.284 | 0.233 | 0.173 | 0.264 | 0.256 |
Algeria | 0.281 | 0.134 | 0.11 | 0.184 | 0.26 |
Kazakhstan | 0.277 | 0.14 | 0.114 | 0.178 | 0.224 |
Turkey | 0.276 | 0.118 | 0.164 | 0.084 | 0.209 |
Bangladesh | 0.274 | 0.109 | 0.127 | 0.121 | 0.114 |
Morocco | 0.264 | 0.251 | 0.161 | 0.255 | 0.208 |
Palestine (West Bank) | 0.26 | 0.139 | 0.173 | 0.148 | 0.211 |
Jordan | 0.259 | 0.249 | 0.12 | 0.22 | 0.203 |
Djibouti | 0.255 | 0.125 | 0.151 | 0.147 | 0.192 |
Haiti | 0.248 | 0.155 | 0.109 | 0.215 | 0.07 |
Mali | 0.235 | 0.153 | 0.175 | 0.252 | 0.198 |
Republic of the Congo | 0.234 | 0.107 | 0.189 | 0.193 | 0.131 |
Rwanda | 0.228 | 0.117 | 0.172 | 0.213 | 0.211 |
Uzbekistan | 0.221 | 0.081 | 0.064 | 0.16 | 0.16 |
Venezuela | 0.214 | 0.064 | 0.159 | 0.041 | 0.106 |
Libya | 0.213 | 0.11 | 0.156 | 0.229 | 0.15 |
Russia | 0.209 | 0.071 | 0.142 | 0.073 | 0.15 |
Thailand | 0.206 | 0.179 | 0.109 | 0.073 | 0.16 |
Cambodia | 0.206 | 0.063 | 0.117 | 0.067 | 0.092 |
Guinea | 0.191 | 0.098 | 0.17 | 0.08 | 0.132 |
Burundi | 0.189 | 0.079 | 0.087 | 0.079 | 0.107 |
Azerbaijan | 0.188 | 0.063 | 0.059 | 0.048 | 0.098 |
Iran | 0.182 | 0.105 | 0.047 | 0.093 | 0.171 |
Cuba | 0.178 | 0.056 | 0.088 | 0.098 | 0.229 |
Nicaragua | 0.177 | 0.034 | 0.114 | 0.028 | 0.081 |
Egypt | 0.175 | 0.118 | 0.092 | 0.091 | 0.093 |
Belarus | 0.175 | 0.042 | 0.059 | 0.039 | 0.224 |
Tajikistan | 0.175 | 0.048 | 0.054 | 0.055 | 0.07 |
Equatorial Guinea | 0.172 | 0.051 | 0.048 | 0.043 | 0.111 |
Oman | 0.17 | 0.137 | 0.121 | 0.062 | 0.185 |
Sudan | 0.169 | 0.074 | 0.09 | 0.063 | 0.102 |
Somalia | 0.162 | 0.101 | 0.09 | 0.145 | 0.081 |
Vietnam | 0.157 | 0.115 | 0.159 | 0.174 | 0.194 |
Hong Kong | 0.154 | 0.126 | 0.056 | 0.048 | 0.191 |
Turkmenistan | 0.149 | 0.035 | 0.032 | 0.025 | 0.088 |
Chad | 0.14 | 0.031 | 0.087 | 0.101 | 0.069 |
Palestine (Gaza) | 0.138 | 0.081 | 0.122 | 0.071 | 0.165 |
Syria | 0.138 | 0.033 | 0.051 | 0.034 | 0.054 |
Laos | 0.134 | 0.108 | 0.115 | 0.057 | 0.129 |
South Sudan | 0.129 | 0.059 | 0.05 | 0.036 | 0.036 |
Yemen | 0.123 | 0.045 | 0.069 | 0.03 | 0.026 |
Bahrain | 0.122 | 0.055 | 0.036 | 0.068 | 0.113 |
Eswatini | 0.12 | 0.096 | 0.079 | 0.036 | 0.061 |
United Arab Emirates | 0.101 | 0.086 | 0.032 | 0.086 | 0.136 |
Myanmar | 0.093 | 0.046 | 0.093 | 0.062 | 0.067 |
Qatar | 0.088 | 0.083 | 0.022 | 0.104 | 0.099 |
North Korea | 0.087 | 0.01 | 0.045 | 0.011 | 0.084 |
Afghanistan | 0.082 | 0.028 | 0.019 | 0.025 | 0.019 |
China | 0.075 | 0.04 | 0.042 | 0.079 | 0.088 |
Eritrea | 0.073 | 0.012 | 0.011 | 0.033 | 0.124 |
Saudi Arabia | 0.016 | 0.043 | 0.026 | 0.06 | 0.109 |
A variety of other organizations use V-Dem's dataset in the construction of their indicators.[13][14] USAID's Journey to Self Reliance Country Roadmap uses V-Dem's data to inform three of its indicators: Liberal Democracy (from V-Dem's Liberal Democracy Index), Social Group Equality (from V-Dem's Social Group Equality in Respect for Civil Liberties) and Civil Society and Media Effectiveness (from V-Dem's Diagonal Accountability Index).[13] 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).[14]
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.[11] Specifically, the Digital Society Project measures a range of questions related to internet censorship, misinformation online, and internet shutdowns.[15] 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.[16][17] It has been updated each year starting in 2019, with data covering from 2000-2021.[16] 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.[17]
V-Dem rankings were criticized by political sociologist Salvatore Babones for their decision to downgrade India while under Narendra Modi's premiership and called for a retraction, noting their evidence to be flawed and wildly disproportionate. While he agreed that the statistical models used by V-Dem for ranking countries are world-class, the problem with indices, according to him, derives from "idiosyncratic choice of indicators", "inexplicable scaling decisions", and "vulnerability to expert biases".[18][19] He found that V-Dem electoral indicators cannot differentiate between genuine & 'sham' democracies because of which one-party dictatorships can score higher than real democracies on election quality.[20][21] Political scientist Asutosh Varshney called V-Dem's proposition that India is an electoral autocracy an "overstretched claim".[22]
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 a liberal democracy while also ignoring the limitations of liberal democracy.[23]