Democracy - Our World in Data

4/11/2018 Democracy - Our World in Data
Democracy
by Max Roser
A democracy is a political system with institutions that allows citizens to express their political preferences, has constraints on the power of the
executive, and a guarantee of civil liberties.
This entry presents the empirical research on the slow rise of democratic regimes over the last two centuries.
Democracies are distinct from autocratic countries in which political preferences cannot be expressed and citizens are not guaranteed civil
liberties. Anocracies – a term used often in this entry – are regimes that fall in the middle of the spectrum of autocracies and democracies.
Anocracies are countries which are not fully autocratic, but which can also not be called democratic.
I. Empirical View
I.1 Number of Democracies
The majority of the world's countries are now governed by democratic regimes, defined as systems with citizen political participation,
constraints on the power of the executive, and a guarantee of civil liberties. The visualization below shows the slow increase of democratic
https://ourworldindata.org/democracy 1/29
countries over the last 200 years. The rise of democracies has been interrupted by the atrocities during the two World Wars – many young
democracies fell back to become autocratic ahead of the Second World War.
After 1945 the number of democracies has started to grow again, but the very dramatic shift towards a democratic world has been the
breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1989. By clicking on 'Autocracies' and 'Anocracies', you can also see that after 1989 the number of
autocracies has decreased dramatically while the number of anocracies initially increased then has stayed fairly stable.
Number of democracies between 1800-20101
Autocracies Anocracies Democracies

89
80
70
60
Number of political regimes
50
40
30
20
10
0
1799 1811 1843 1874 1906 1938 1970 2001 2009
The author Max Roser licensed this visualisation under a CC BY-SA license . You are welcome to share but please refer to its source where you
find more information: www.OurWorldinData.org/data/political-regimes/democratisation
Data sources: Polity IV
I.2 Share of World Population Living in Democracies
The mere number of democratic countries does not us how many people in the world actually enjoy democratic rights since the population in
different countries varies hugely. Therefore it is more interesting to look at the number of people governed by different political regimes. This
is shown in the chart below.
By clicking on 'Relative', the following graph shows the share of people living in different regimes over the last two centuries.
The chart shows the share of people living under different types of political regimes over the last 2 centuries. Throughout the 19th century more
than a third of the population lived in in countries that were colonized by imperial powers and almost everyone else lived in autocratically ruled
countries. The first expansion of political freedom from the late 19th century onward was crushed by the rise of authoritarian regimes that in
many countries took their place in the time leading up to the Second World War.
In the second half of the 20th century the world has changed significantly: Colonial empires ended, and more and more countries turned
democratic: The share of the world population living in democracies increased continuously – particularly important was the breakdown of the
Soviet Union which allowed more countries to democratise. Now more than every second person in the world lives in a democracy.
We see the same data on political regimes on the map below, but it is worth pointing out that 4 out of 5 people in the world that live in an
autocracy live in China.
Number of world citizens living under different political regimes

The Polity IV score captures the type of political regime for each country on a range from -10 (full autocracy) to +10 (full
democracy). Regimes that fall into the middle of this spectrum are called anocracies.
Country in Transition
7 billion or No Data
Population in Colony
Population in
6 billion Autocracy
Population in Closed
5 billion Anocracy
Population in Open
Anocracy
4 billion
3 billion
Population in
2 billion Democracy
1 billion
0
1816 1850 1900 1950 2000 2015
Source: World Population by Political Regime they live in (OWID (2016))
Relative CHART DATA SOURCES   
I.3 World maps of political regimes over 200 years
The world has changed: 2 centuries ago most countries were autocratically ruled or part of a colonial empire, today most countries are
democracies. The map below shows the data for 2015, but you can move the slider at the bottom past to see this change over the last 2
centuries.
Most countries in Europe and the Americas have become democracies. Some parts of Africa - especially in the West and the South - have
democratized and so have countries in Asia; India is the world's largest democracy. Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Mongolia are all full
democracies according to the Polity IV evaluation.
Political Regime, 2015

The Polity IV score classifies the type of political regime for each country on a range from -10 (full autocracy) to +10 (full
democracy). Regimes that fall into the middle of this spectrum are called anocracies.
No data Colony Autocracy (-10 to -6) Open Anocracy (1 to 5)
Source: Political Regime (OWID based on Polity IV and Wimmer & Min)
Note: See the linked democracy entry for some discussion of the complexity in defining democracy and the limitations of this data.
 1816 2015 CHART MAP DATA SOURCES    
I.4 Political freedom is a very recent achievement
The following world map of the age of democratic regimes shows that a democratic world is only a very recent achievement. It also indicates
that economic success goes together with political liberation. The countries that have democratized first are mostly those countries that first
achieved economic growth. The present rates of economic growth in the poorer countries of the world therefore give hope for further
democratization around the world.
World map of the age of democratic regimes - years before 2007 since the (last) transition to a democratic regime2
World Map of the Age of Democratic Regimes (in years) - in 2007
more than 150

100 - 149
Age of Democratic Regimes in 2007 (in years)
50 - 99
40 - 49
30 - 39
20 - 29
15 - 19
10 - 14
5-9
less than 5
Not Democratic
Not Sovereign
no data
The author Max Roser licensed this visualisation under a CC BY-SA license . You are welcome to share but please refer to its source where you
find more information: www.ourworldindata.org/data/political-regimes/democratisation
Data source: Boix-Miller-Rosato dichotomous coding of democracy, 1800-2007
Colonial past
Above we have shown all of today's countries that were part of a colonial empire in purple. This map now shows which other country was the
colonial power that ruled over another country. Press the 'Play' at the bottom to see the change over time.
The borders shown throughout this visualisation are today's borders. It would be of course preferable to show the historical borders and the
changes over time; the current solution is a limitation of our technical framework that cannot (yet) show border changes.
Colonial powers, 1816

The borders shown are today’s borders. It would be preferable to show the historical borders and the changes over time; the
current solution is a limitation of our technical framework that cannot (yet) show border changes.
No data United Kingdom Turkey Sudan Russia China Mixed Rule Spain France Portugal Germany
Netherlands Belgium Austria-Hungary USA Denmark Korea Thailand Sweden Egypt Brazil Colombia
Haiti Bolivia Italy Australia Japan Yugoslavia South Africa Czechoslovakia Pakistan Ethiopia
Source: Colonial Regimes - Minner and Wim (2006)
 1816 1992 MAP DATA SOURCES    
II. Correlates, Determinants & Consequences
II.1 Correlates of democratic rule
Below we will analyse what causes a country to turn democratic and vice versa what consequences democratisation has for the living
conditions in the country.
But first I want to show how democratic countries differ from non-democratic countries.
Democratic countries are richer – the exception are fossil-fuel exporters
The scatter plot below shows the latest observations for GDP per capita and the Polity IV score. No country that is an autocracy (score between
-10 and -6) has an income of more than 15,000 international-$ if it is not heavily dependent on fossil-fuel exports. Countries that are
autocratically ruled and do not have the option to export fossil fuels are poor.
Income vs type of political regime, 2014

Political regime are classified on a range from -10 (full autocracy) to +10 (full democracy). Incomes are adjusted for price differences
between countries to allow comparisons.
 LINEAR
$140,000 Qatar Africa
Asia
Europe
$120,000 North America
Oceania
South America
$100,000 Luxembourg
$80,000
GDP per capita
Singapore
United Arab Emirates Norway
$60,000 United States
Saudi Arabia Germany
Bahrain Equatorial Guinea France
$40,000 Oman Japan
Czech Republic
Russia Poland
$20,000 China Turkey
Brazil
Thailand Algeria Venezuela Iraq
Egypt India
Uzbekistan Vietnam Myanmar Nigeria Pakistan
Tanzania Bangladesh Nepal Benin Kenya
Gambia Rwanda Mali
-10 -5 0 5 10
Political Regime (OurWorldInData based on Polity IV and Wimmer & Min)
Source: GDP per capita, Political Regime (OWID based on Polity IV and Wimmer & Min)
 1950 2014
 Search Average annual change CHART DATA SOURCES   
Democratic countries are healthier
As a measure for the health situation in a country I am looking at child mortality.

What we can see from the scatter plot below is that autocratic countries rarely have a healthy population. Few autocratic countries achieved a
child mortality below 10 per 1,000. Democratic countries – Polity score of 7 or higher – on the other hand often have child mortality rates
below 10 or even 5 per 1,000.
This cross section at one point in time does not tell us anything about the length of time that a country was ruled by a democratic government –
for this we have to study the link between democratisation and health in more detail and more carefully.
Child mortality vs type of political regime, 2015

Political regime are classified on a range from -10 (full autocracy) to +10 (full democracy). Child mortality is number of children dying
before the 5th birthday (per 1,000 live births).
 LINEAR
Angola Africa
Asia
140 Chad Somalia Europe
Central African Republic North America
Oceania
Sierra Leone South America
120 Mali
Nigeria
Child Mortality Estimates (CME Info)
100 Democratic Republic of Congo

Equatorial Guinea Cote d'Ivoire
Afghanistan
Cameroon Burkina Faso
Burundi Pakistan
80 Togo Mozambique
Comoros
Gambia Haiti Zimbabwe Liberia
Laos Djibouti Malawi
Swaziland Ghana
60 Uganda Papua New Guinea
Turkmenistan Timor India
Myanmar Tanzania Madagascar
Eritrea
Rwanda South Africa
Uzbekistan Bangladesh
40
Azerbaijan Iraq
Indonesia
North Korea Egypt Algeria Cape Verde
Vietnam Ecuador
20 China Jordan Brazil Peru
Saudi Arabia Thailand Libya
Oman Russia Sri Lanka
Qatar United States
Cuba Czech Republic Japan
Singapore
0
-10 -5 0 5 10
Political Regime (OurWorldInData based on Polity IV and Wimmer & Min)
Source: Political Regime (OWID based on Polity IV and Wimmer & Min), Child Mortality Estimates - CME Info (2016)
 Search CHART DATA SOURCES   
II.2 Determinants of democratisation
It is difficult to identify what causes countries to turn democratic and vice versa that is investigating how living conditions change in countries
that turn democratic. The reason why social science gets so very difficult is that all good things tend to come together. We have just seen that in
the preceding correlates section – democratic countries are richer, healthier, happier, better educated and more. This means that if we study
measures of all these aspects across countries we find a correlation between all of them; social scientists therefore use clever methods when
trying to distinguish between correlation and causation.
Countries with higher educational attainment in the past are more likely to have democratic political regimes today
A long-standing theory in political science stipulates that a country's level of education attainment is a key determinant of the emergence and
sustainability of democratic political institutions, both because it promotes political participation at the individual level, and because it fosters a
collective sense of civic duty.
Under this hypothesis, therefore, we should expect that education levels in a country correlate positively with measures of democratisation in
subsequent years. The following visualization shows that this positive correlation is indeed supported by the data. As we can see, countries
where adults had a higher average education level in 1970, are also more likely to have democratic political regimes today (you can read more
about measures of education level in our entry on Global Rise of Education).
As usual, these results should be interpreted carefully, because they do not imply a causal link: it does not prove that increasing education
necessarily produces democratic outcomes everywhere in the world.
However, the academic research here does suggest that there is a causal link between education and democratization – indeed, a number of
empirical academic papers have found that this positive relationship remains after controlling for many other country characteristics (see, for
example, Lutz, Crespo-Cuaresma, and Abbasi‐Shavazi 20103).
Correlation between education in the past and democracy today

Average years of schooling for total population aged 15-64 in 1970, and political regime according to the Polity IV assessment
(ranging from -10 for ‘Fully Autocratic’ to +10 for ‘Fully Democratic’) in 2015.
10 Africa
India Kenya Indonesia Peru France Chile Germany Japan United States
Brazil Asia
Guatemala Philippines South Korea Belgium
Political Regime (OurWorldInData based on Polity IV and Wimmer & Min) Europe
Benin Pakistan Senegal Zambia Colombia Guyana North America
Nepal Iraq Sri Lanka Oceania
Mali Democratic Republic of Congo Malaysia South America
5
Cote d'Ivoire Venezuela Russia
Turkey
Algeria Fiji
Bangladesh
Yemen Haiti Libya

0
Uganda
Togo
Myanmar Thailand Jordan
Egypt Cameroon
Gambia
-5
China
Iran Kuwait Cuba
Syria Swaziland
-10
0 2 4 6 8 10
Total years of schooling in 1970
Source: Lee and Lee (2016), Political Regime (OWID based on Polity IV and Wimmer & Min)
 Search CHART DATA SOURCES   
II.3 Consequences of democratic rule
Human rights are better protected in democratic countries
In considering the link between the type of political regime and the protection of human rights it is important to note that the right to vote on
those in political power is in itself a fundamental right. In this sense democratic countries are by definition those countries in which this
important dimension of human rights is protected.
But there are several human rights and it is interesting to study the link between democracy and these. As we note in our entry on human rights
it is however very difficult to measure human rights protections consistently. The best available human rights measure is the protection score
published by political scientist Christopher J. Fariss in Farriss (2014)4. This measure focusses on the protection of the physical integrity of
citizens and captures whether a government protects the physical integrity of its citizens and takes into account torture, government killing,
political imprisonment, extrajudicial executions, mass killings and disappearances. Higher human rights scores indicate better human rights
protection.
The visualisation below plots the regime type – again captured by the Polity IV measure as before – against this human rights protection score.
Political regime scores of 6 and above indicate a democratic regime and we see from this chart that citizens of non-democratic countries have
generally much lower chances of being governed by a regime that ensures the protection of human rights in this dimension. With the exception
of two countries – Singapore and Oman – all countries that have human rights score of higher than 0.5 are democratic regimes.
Mulligan, Gil, and Sala-i-Martin (2004)5 investigate the link between democratic rule and the protection of human rights in a sample of 121
counties controlling for other important variables. The authors find that relative to autocratic regimes countries that are democratically ruled are
less likely to execute, regulate religion, and to censor the press.
Human rights vs type of political regime, 2014

Political regime are classified on a range from -10 (full autocracy) to +10 (full democracy).
Luxembourg Africa
Asia
Norway Europe
3
North America
Taiwan Oceania
Solomon Islands
Germany South America
2
United Kingdom
Singapore France Japan
Human rights protection score
Qatar South Korea

1 Hungary
Suriname Romania Italy
Kuwait Fiji Gabon Liberia
Togo
United Arab Emirates Algeria Malaysia
Mauritania United States
0
Tanzania Nepal
Vietnam Morocco Ukraine Indonesia
Saudi Arabia Uganda
China Thailand Turkey
Bangladesh Russia Burundi Brazil India
Iran
-1 Afghanistan
Egypt Somalia Pakistan
Nigeria Iraq
Myanmar
North Korea South Sudan Democratic Republic of Congo
-2 Sudan
-3
-10 -5 0 5 10
Political regime type
Source: Political Regime (OWID based on Polity IV and Wimmer & Min), Human Rights Protection Scores – Christopher Farris (2014) and Keith Schnakenberg
 1949 2014
 Search Average annual change CHART DATA SOURCES   
Does democratisation have an effect on education?
We have seen above that there is empirical evidence that an expansion of education is making it more likely that a country becomes a
democracy. Now we want to ask the question the other way around, is democratisation followed by an improvement of education?6
Evidence that democratisation leads to better education
It is not straightforward to identify the possible effect of a democratic regime on the expansion of education because it has to be distinguished
from the previously discussed reverse causation running from education to democracy.
Gallego (2010)7 presents the most careful analysis that we are aware of and presents evidence that democracy has indeed a causal effect on
primary school enrollment.8
Other papers deal with the issue of possible reverse causality in a simpler fashion and use lagged observations of democracy as a possible
determinant for the level of education. For example Baum and Lake (2001) find – in 'The invisible hand of democracy' – that democratisation
increased secondary-school enrollment.9
Also, Acemoglu, Naidu, Restrepo, and Robinson (2015)10 find that democracy is associated with an increase in secondary schooling.
In the following we summarize some evidence on the channels through which democratisation improves education:
Electoral competition in democracies increases the incentive to abolish school fees
Harding and Stasavage (2014)11 equally identify an impact of democracy on primary education. The explanation the authors propose is that
electoral competition in democracies increases the incentives for politicians to abolish primary school fees. The authors caution that
democratisation has a much small effect on the provision of school inputs and consequently the quality of schooling, because executive actions
on these issues are more difficult to monitor and therefore constitute a smaller advantage to politicians in electoral competition.
Democratisation increases educational spending
In an earlier paper Stasvage (2005)12 focussed on Africa and finds that the shift to multiparty competition in African countries in the
1990s increased total educational spending as a percentage of GDP.
In an extensive study of 100 countries over 40 years Ansell (2010)13 presents evidence that democratisation increases both total educational
spending as a share of GDP and as a share of the government budget.
Evidence that democracy improves teacher–student ratios
Naidu (2011)14 studies the effect of the 19th century disenfranchisement of black citizens in the U.S. South through poll taxes and literacy tests.
The author finds that this reversal of democracy "reduced the teacher-child ratio in black schools by 10-23%, with no significant effects on
white teacher-child ratios".
Democracy improved local politics in China and lead to more educated politicians
Martinez-Bravo et al. (2012)15 study the gradual introduction of local elections in China.
The authors exploit the staggered timing of the introduction of village elections as a natural experiment for causal identification. The authors
"find that elections significantly increase public goods expenditure, the increase corresponds to demand and is paralleled by an increase in
public goods provision and local taxes" confirming some of the results elsewhere in this entry including increased public education in villages
with more children. The increase in public expenditures – overall total public goods investment increased by 27 percent – is funded by
villagers and is accompanied by an increase in the amount of local taxes paid by villagers.
The introduction of elections also reduced inequality by redistributing from the rich to the poor partly through land redistribution from elite-
controlled enterprises to household farmland and improved agricultural productivity by increasing irrigation which is likely to
"disproportionately benefit poorer households".
Additionally the authors report that following the introduction of elections the turnover of village chairmen increased and their characteristics
changed. They are less likely to be Communist Party members and the politcians are importantly better educated themselves.
III. Data Quality & Definition
III.1 Why we chose the Polity IV as the main source for democracy measures
It is necessarily controversial to measure a complex concept such as the type of a political regime in a single metric. But since it can be useful
to quantify the political regime characteristics so that it is possible to compare political regimes over time and between countries and to study
the drivers and consequences of political regime change quantitatively. For example a field of study where this can be useful is studying the
link between democratisation and the end of mass famines.
A much cited, thorough evaluation of commonly used democracy measures has been presented by Munck and Verkuilen (2002).16
Unfortunately the authors find a trade-off between the comprehensiveness of the empirical scope and the quality of the assessment in terms of
conceptualization, measurement and aggregation. According to the authors, the Polity IV measures are a 'partial exception' of this tradeoff, and
therefore I rely on these measures mostly in this entry. In general, the Polity IV defines democracy as a system which has institutions in which
citizens can express their preferences, has constraints on the power of the executive, and a guarantee of civil liberties. It defines an autocracy as
a system that restricts political participation by citizens, has executives chosen within the political elite, and executives with few institutional
constraints.
The Polity IV measure used here is certainly also questionable – as would every other alternative – but we chose it as my main source because
based on our comparison with alternatives and the paper by Munck and Verkuilen (2002) it is the best available option, particularly if a long-
run perspective is the main objective.
We also have to keep in mind that this measure cannot capture everything that matters for a political regime. For example it makes sense to
measure corruption or human rights separately from the democracy concept. Not because it doesn't matter but because all aspects matter and
for different question we want to be able to differentiate between the importance of different factors.
Particularly good about the Polity IV measures is that the data source has a detailed explanation for each country why a country was classified in a
particular way in a particular year: You find these country by country explanations in the pdf files here.
III.2 Comparison of different regime measures
This graph compares the political regime measures that are available for a very long time - since the early 19th century: the Polyarchy measure
and the Polity measure and for a shorter period the the Freedom House measure. Shown is the share of democratic countries among all
independent countries. There are some differences but the graphs shows they largely move together.
Share of democracies of independent countries, 1816–2002 – Wilhelmsen17
IV. Data Sources
An overview of measures is presented at www.democracybarometer.org and at devEconData.
The Manifesto-Project by the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung is an effort to understand political changes in democratic
countries. This project undertakes a qualitative analysis of party manifestos for 50 countries since 1945.
IV.1 Long Run
Polity Index
Data: Many different measures – listed here. Most commonly used is the Polity2 measure which measures political systems on a
spectrum between autocracy and democracy. 18
Geographical coverage: Global – by country.
Time span: Data goes back to 1800 and is yearly updated.
Available at: The website is here. Older versions of the POLITY dataset are available at Kristian Gleditsch's Polity Data Archive.
This data set is compiled at Colorado State University. More comments on the Polity measures can be found at DevEconData.
Vanhanen’s Index of Democracy

Data: Competition, Participation, and Index of Democracy
Geographical coverage: Global – 187 countries
Time span: Since 1810
Available at: Online here.
Criticized by Munck and Verkuilen (2002).19
Boix-Miller-Rosato dichotomous coding of democracy, 1800-2007

Data: Dichotomous democracy measure, Dichotomous indicator of sovereignty/independence, Previous number of democratic
breakdowns, Consecutive years of current regime type
Geographical coverage: Global.
Time span: 1800-2007
Available at: The data is available at Michael K. Miller's website.
The accompanying paper is published here.20
Relatively new.
IV.2 Recent Decades
Freedom House
Data: Measures of political and civil liberties
Geographical coverage: Global
Time span: Since 1973
Available at: Online here
Criticized by Munck and Verkuilen (see last side note)
Democracy-Dictatorship Data
Data: Classification of political regimes as democracy and dictatorship (and classification of democracies as parliamentary, semi-
presidential (mixed) and presidential).
Geographical coverage: Global – 202 countries.
Time span: From 1946 or year of independence to 2008.
Available at: Online at José Antonio Cheibub's website.
The accompanying paper is Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland (2010).21
Papaioannou and Siourounis "Democratization and Growth"
Data: Year when permanent democratization happened

Geographical coverage: Global – by country
Time span: 1960-2003
Available at: Data and paper available for download at Papaioannou's website.
Varieties of Democracy
Data: Varieties of Democracy data
Geographical coverage: Global – 206 countries.
Time span: 1900 to present
Available at: Online at www.v-dem.net.
Footnotes
1. The source of the data is the polity IV dataset which is available online here. I have only included countries with a population greater than 500,000.
2. The data is taken from the 'Boix-Miller-Rosato dichotomous coding of democracy, 1800-2007' online at Michael K. Miller’s website. The data refers to the state of the political regimes
in 2007.
3. Lutz, W., Crespo Cuaresma, J., & Abbasi‐Shavazi, M. J. (2010). Demography, education, and democracy: Global trends and the case of Iran. Population and Development Review,
36(2), 253-281.
4. Christopher J. Fariss (2014) – Respect for Human Rights has Improved Over Time: Modeling the Changing Standard of Accountability. In American Political Science Review / Volume
108 / Issue 02 / May 2014, pp 297-318 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003055414000070 (About DOI), Published online: 08 May 2014
5. Casey B. Mulligan; Ricard Gil; Xavier Sala-i-Martin (2004) – Do Democracies Have Different Public Policies than Nondemocracies? The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 18,
No. 1. (2004), pp. 51-74
Online without a paywall here.
6. The following literature is largely based on Daron Acemoglu, Suresh Naidu, Pascual Restrepo, James A. Robinson (2015) – Democracy, Redistribution, and Inequality.
Handbook of Income Distribution Volume 2, 2015, Pages 1885–1966 Handbook of Income Distribution Cover image Chapter 21
A summary of the findings of this paper is presented by the authors here.
7. Gallego, F.A., (2010) – Historical origins of schooling: the role of democracy and political decentralization. The Review of Economics and Statistics 92 (2), 228–243.
Online here.
8. The author employs an instrumental variable approach using historical settler mortality of Europeans and indigenous population density in 1500 as instruments for democracy.
9. Baum, M.A., Lake, D.A. (2001) – The invisible hand of democracy: political control and the provision of public services. Comparative Political Studies August 2001 vol. 34 no. 6 587-
621
Online here.
Without paywall here.
10. Daron Acemoglu, Suresh Naidu, Pascual Restrepo, James A. Robinson (2015) – Democracy, Redistribution, and Inequality.
Handbook of Income Distribution Volume 2, 2015, Pages 1885–1966 Handbook of Income Distribution Cover image Chapter 21
A summary of the results is presented by the authors here.
11. Harding, Robin, Stasavage, David (2014) – What Democracy Does (and Doesn’t do) for Basic Services: School Fees, School Inputs, and African Elections. The Journal of Politics, Vol.
76, No. 1, January 2014, Pp. 229–245
Without paywall online here.
12. Stasavage, D (2005) – Democracy and education spending in Africa. American Journal of Political Science, 49: 343–358. doi:10.1111/j.0092-5853.2005.00127.x
Online here.
13. Ansell, B., (2010) – From the Ballot to the Blackboard: The Redistributive Political Economy of Education. The dissertation is freely available online here.
Published by Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
14. Naidu, S., (2011) – Suffrage, Schooling, and Sorting in the Post-Bellum US South. Unpublished. Available freely here.
15. Martinez-Bravo, Monica and Padró i Miquel, Gerard and Qian, Nancy, The Effects of Democratization on Public Goods and Redistribution: Evidence from China (May 2012). CEPR
Discussion Paper No. DP8975. Available at SSRN here.
16. Munck and Verkuilen (2002) - Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy Evaluating Alternative Indices. In Comparative Political Studies, 35, 1, 5--34.
17. Lars Wilhelmsen - A Democratic Peace Revisited (Measuring Democracy in International Relations). Master Thesis - Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, April 2006.
Online here. The Polyarchy data is available at the PRIO institute.
18. This measure is criticized by Gleditsch and Ward (1997) – Double Take: A Reexamination of Democracy and Autocracy in Modern Polities, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 41(3): 361-
383.
19. Gerardo L. Munck and Jay Verkuilen (2002) – Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Indices. Comparative Political Studies 2002 35: 5. Online here.
20. Carles Boix, Michael Miller and Sebastian Rosato (2012) – A Complete Data Set of Political Regimes, 1800−2007 Comparative Political Studies published online 26 November 2012.
21. José Antonio Cheibub, Jennifer Gandhi, and James Raymond Vreeland (2010) – Democracy and Dictatorship Revisited. Public Choice, vol. 143, no. 2-1, pp. 67-101.

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4/11/2018 Democracy - Our World in Data

I.1 Number of Democracies

Number of democracies between 1800-20101

Autocracies Anocracies Democracies

I.2 Share of World Population Living in Democracies

is shown in the chart below.

Number of world citizens living under different political regimes

Relative CHART DATA SOURCES   

I.3 World maps of political regimes over 200 years

Political Regime, 2015

No data Colony Autocracy (-10 to -6) Open Anocracy (1 to 5)

 1816 2015 CHART MAP DATA SOURCES    

I.4 Political freedom is a very recent achievement

more than 150

Colonial powers, 1816

Source: Colonial Regimes - Minner and Wim (2006)

 1816 1992 MAP DATA SOURCES    

II. Correlates, Determinants & Consequences

II.1 Correlates of democratic rule

Democratic countries are richer – the exception are fossil-fuel exporters

Income vs type of political regime, 2014

 Search Average annual change CHART DATA SOURCES   

Democratic countries are healthier

As a measure for the health situation in a country I am looking at child mortality.

Child mortality vs type of political regime, 2015

100 Democratic Republic of Congo

 Search CHART DATA SOURCES   

II.2 Determinants of democratisation

Correlation between education in the past and democracy today

Yemen Haiti Libya

 Search CHART DATA SOURCES   

II.3 Consequences of democratic rule

Human rights are better protected in democratic countries

Human rights vs type of political regime, 2014

Qatar South Korea

 Search Average annual change CHART DATA SOURCES   

Does democratisation have an effect on education?

Evidence that democratisation leads to better education

Electoral competition in democracies increases the incentive to abolish school fees

Democratisation increases educational spending

Evidence that democracy improves teacher–student ratios

III. Data Quality & Definition

III.2 Comparison of different regime measures

Share of democracies of independent countries, 1816–2002 – Wilhelmsen17

IV. Data Sources

An overview of measures is presented at www.democracybarometer.org and at devEconData.

IV.1 Long Run

Vanhanen’s Index of Democracy

Boix-Miller-Rosato dichotomous coding of democracy, 1800-2007

IV.2 Recent Decades

Papaioannou and Siourounis "Democratization and Growth"

Data: Year when permanent democratization happened

Online without a paywall here.

Online without a paywall here.

A summary of the findings of this paper is presented by the authors here.

Without paywall here.

Online without a paywall here.

A summary of the results is presented by the authors here.

Without paywall online here.

Published by Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.

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