An R package to load, explore and work with the most recent V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) dataset (v10).

V-Dem: Global Standards, Local Knowledge

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a new approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. We provide a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the simple presence of elections. The V-Dem project distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles.

We are a team of over 50 social scientists on six continents. We work with more than 3,000 country experts and a truly global International Advisory Board. Read more about the work we do here.

The vdemdata R package

This package contains the most recent V-Dem dataset (v10) and provides some additional functions.

Basics:

• vdem: Load the dataset (for non-R users, please access the V-Dem dataset here)
• var_info: Print to the console basic information on a specific variable as given in the codebook
• find_var: Search variables via keywords
• fill_vars: Fill election-specific variables

Graphics:

• plot_indicator: Plot V-Dem indicators for exploratory data analysis.
• plot_episode: Plot Episodes of Regime Transitions (ERT) over time.

Data on Episodes of Regime Transitions (ERT, for details see also the ERT Codebook):

• NOTE: for non-R users we provide the ERT dataset here as csv. file - however, we recommend using our vdemdata R package since one huge advantage of the package is that it allows to flexibly set parameters for generating the episodes.

• get_eps: Identify episodes of regime transitions (autocratization, democratization) in the most recent V-dem data set. Autocratization is defined as any movement towards autocracy which starts within democracies or autocracies (cf. Lührmann and Lindberg, Democratization, 2019). Democratization is defined as any movement towards democracy which starts in autocracies or democracies (cf. Wilson et al., 2020)

• find_overlap: Find potential overlaps between episodes of democratization and autocratization which may occur depending on how the thresholds are set.

• fix_overlap: Interactive function to fix potential overlaps between episodes of democratization and autocratization which may occur depending on how the thresholds are set.

Installation

# Install the development version of the vdemdata package 
# (since this package is still an ongoing project, 
# keep checking for updates, new functions, etc.!)

# First, you need to have the devtools package installed
install.packages("devtools")
# now, install the vdemdata package directly from GitHub
devtools::install_github("vdeminstitute/vdemdata")

# NOTE: make sure you have an updated R version (> 3.5) and
# - since the package is still a development version - 
# an updated version of xcode (Mac), rtools (Windows), r-base-dev (Linux)
# installed. If you have troubles with the installation 
# write to the package maintainer seraphine.maerz@v-dem.net