Democracy for All (original) (raw)

This publication has been produced with the assistance of the european union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the V-Dem Institute and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the european union or any other donor. The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect an official position of the V-Dem project or the V-Dem Steering Committee. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) produces the largest global dataset on democracy with some 19 million data for 201 countries from 1789 to 2017. Involving over 3,000 scholars and other country experts, V-Dem measures hundreds of different attributes of democracy. V-Dem enables new ways to study the nature, causes, and consequences of democracy embracing its multiple meanings. We are pleased to present our second Annual Democracy Report. We are proud and delighted to count you among our readers, and we hope that you find the report interesting, timely, and useful. In the 2018 Democracy Report we find that global levels of democracy are still close to an all-time high. However, even though the electoral aspects of democracy have improved in many countries in recent years, freedom of expression, media, and civil society are under threat in other parts of the world. The report identifies disquieting trends in several key countries, such as Brazil, India, poland, Russia, Turkey, and the united States. The V-Dem project is a global collaboration headquartered at the V-Dem Institute, Department of political Science, Gothenburg university. While more than 3,000 scholars and experts constitute the global V-Dem team, the Institute is run by us-a team of 19 people. In addition to our aim of producing cutting edge research, we work all year round employing unique, state of the art techniques to provide you and other users with global data of the highest possible quality. over the past year, we have focused on improving and expanding the vast V-Dem dataset even further-culminating in the release of version 8. For the very first time, data from 'Historical V-Dem' is integrated-expanding the coverage to 228 years from 1789 to 2017. We are excited that the dataset now includes more than 200 political units and over 450 indicators and indices of democracy. Team spirit and a collaborative nature are key elements of V-Dem and the Institute. It permeates all the work we do and all parts of the team, from the principal Investigators-michael Coppedge, John Gerring, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Staffan I lindberg, Svend-erik Skaaning, Jan Teorell-and the core group of scholars who are project managers, to the global network of Country experts, Country Coordinators and Regional managers. We work with some 3,000 individuals from almost all the countries in the world in order to assemble the 19 million data points in the V-Dem datasets. Without our truly experienced and knowledgeable experts providing nuanced, precise, and local expertise, V-Dem would not exist today. We would like to extend a big thank you to our Country experts, Country Coordinators and Regional managers! even though V-Dem is an academic mission at heart, we always strive to be relevant to the "real world". over the past years, we have had the opportunity to collaborate and engage with many international organizations, governments, and nGos, ranging from the World Bank, to the Swedish government, organizations like Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and grassroots groups in nepal. With our V-Dem Regional Centers around the globe that we are so proud of, our outreach activities continue to grow. We look forward to another year of fruitful collaboration with our partners around the world. We also hope that you will also find the series of working papers, thematic briefs, country briefs, and policy briefs available on the website (www.v-dem.net) helpful to support of democracy in practice. We would like to thank everyone who has made, and continues to make, the V-Dem journey possible.