Browsing by Author "Edgell, Amanda B."

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

A Framework for Understanding Regime Transformation: Introducing the ERT Dataset
(V-Dem Institute, 2021-02) Maerz, Seraphine F.; Edgell, Amanda B.; Wilson, Matthew C.; Hellmeier, Sebastian; Lindberg, Staffan I.; V-Dem Institute
Gradual processes of democratization and autocratization have gained increased attention in the literature. Assessing such processes in a comparative framework remains a challenge, however, due to their under-conceptualization and a bifurcation of the democracy and autocracy literatures. This article provides a new conceptualization of regime transformation as substantial and sustained changes in democratic institutions and practices in either direction. This allows for studies to address both democratization and autocratization as related obverse processes. Using this framework, the article introduces a dataset that captures 680 unique episodes of regime transformation (ERT) from 1900 to 2019. These data provide novel insights into regime change over the past 120 years, illustrating the value of developing a uniﬁed framework for studying regime transformation. Such transformations, while meaningfully altering the qualities of the regime, only produce a regime transition about 32% of the time. The majority of episodes either end before a transition takes place or do not have the potential for such a transition (i.e. constituted further democratization in democratic regimes or further autocratization in autocratic regimes). The article also provides comparisons to existing datasets and illustrative case studies for face validity. It concludes with a discussion about how the ERT framework can be applied in peace research.
Democratic Legacies: Using Democratic Stock to Assess Norms, Growth, and Regime Trajectories
(2020-05) Edgell, Amanda B.; Wilson, Matthew C.; Boese, Vanessa A.; Grahn, Sandra; V-Dem Institute
While social scientists often theorize about the enduring effects of past regime characteristics, conceptual issues and data limitations pose real challenges for assessing these legacies empirically. This paper introduces a new measure of democratic stock, conceptualized as the accumulated experience of democratic rule within a polity. Using a weighted sum of past values on the Electoral Democracy Index from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, we capture variation in past experiences with democratic institutions and practices in 199 political units from 1789 to 2019. This measure of democratic stock provides additional information on a country's political history that is not captured by its present level of democracy or regime type. To illustrate this, we highlight several cases and revisit prominent theories about democratic norms, economic growth, and democratic decline. These applications encourage scholars to think more about political outcomes as legacies of democracy.
Deterring Dictatorship: Explaining Democratic Resilience since 1900
(V-Dem Institute, 2020-05) Boese, Vanessa A.; Edgell, Amanda B.; Hellmeier, Sebastian; Maerz, Seraphine F.; Lindberg, Staffan I.; V-Dem Institute
Democracy is under threat globally from democratically elected leaders engaging in erosion of media freedom, civil society, and the rule of law. What distinguishes democracies that prevail against the forces of autocratization? This article breaks new ground by conceptualizing democratic resilience as a two-stage process, whereby democracies first exhibit resilience by avoiding autocratization altogether and second, by avoiding democratic breakdown given that autocratization has occurred. To model this two-stage process, we introduce the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset tracking autocratization since 1900. These data demonstrate the extraordinary nature of the current wave of autocratization: Fifty-nine (61%) episodes of democratic regression in the ERT began after 1992. Since then, autocratization episodes have killed an unprecedented 36 democratic regimes. Using a selection-model, we simultaneously test for factors that make democracies more prone to experience democratic regression and, given this, factors that explain democratic breakdown. Results from the explanatory analysis suggest that constraints on the executive are positively associated with a reduced risk of autocratization. Once autocratization is ongoing, we find that a long history of democratic institutions, durable judicial constraints on the executive, and more democratic neighbours are factors that make democracy more likely to prevail.
Establishing Pathways to Democracy Using Domination Analysis
(2020) Edgell, Amanda B.; Boese, Vanessa A.; Maerz, Seraphine F.; Lindenfors, Patrik; Lindberg, Staffan I.; V-Dem Institute
How does the order in which liberalization unfolds a ect the likelihood for a successful democratic transition? Dahl was among the rst to argue that the sequence matters for the outcome when it comes to democratization. This paper builds upon his work and empirically analyzes pathways to democracy employing the newly developed method of domination analysis. We are the rst to demonstrate three key ndings: 1) There is a clear structure in terms of order of how most episodes of liberalization from authoritarian rule develop; 2) Such sequences are di erent in key respects for failed and successful episodes of liberalization; and 3) clean election elements { in the capacity of electoral management bodies { stand out as developing earlier in episodes that successfully lead to democracy.
Institutions of Electoral Integrity and Clientelism: The Role of Electoral Management Bodies
(2020-09) Lundstedt, Martin; Edgell, Amanda B.; V-Dem Institute
While clientelism is most often viewed as a symptom of traditional politics, empirical evidence suggests that it is actually a varied and multifaceted phenomenon, found in widely differing economic, political, and cultural contexts. As a result, our understanding of how formal institutions affect clientelism remains limited. This article integrates research on clientelism and electoral integrity, arguing that as the capacity of electoral management bodies (EMBs) increases, the costs of clientelism increase for voters, parties, and candidates. As a result of this increasing cost, we anticipate that declines in the supply of clientelism are associated with advances in EMB capacity, all else equal. This theory is tested using V-Dem data, covering more than 160 countries from 1900 to 2016, as well as several alternative measures of both EMB capacity and clientelism as vote buying. This multifaceted empirical approach finds strong support for the theory that EMB capacity decreases the supply of clientelism at the country-level.
Successful and Failed Episodes of Democratization: Conceptualization, Identification, and Description
(2020) Wilson, Matthew C.; Morgan, Richard; Medzihorsky, Juraj; Maxwell, Laura; Maerz, Seraphine F.; Lührmann, Anna; Lindenfors, Patrik; Edgell, Amanda B.; Boese, Vanessa A.; Lindberg, Staffan I.; V-Dem Institute
What explains successful democratization? This paper makes four contributions towards providing more sophisticated answers to this question. Building on the comparative case study and large-N literature, it first presents a new approach to conceptualizing the discrete beginning of a period of political liberalization, tracing its progression, and classifying episodes by successful vs. different types of failing outcomes, thus avoiding potentially fallacious assumptions of unit homogeneity. Second, it provides the first ever dataset (EPLIB) of the full universe of episodes from 1900 to 2018, and third, it demonstrates the value of this approach, showing that while several established covariates are useful for predicting outcomes, none of them seem to explain the onset of a period of liberalization. Fourth, it illustrates how the identification of episodes makes it possible to study processes quantitatively using sequencing methods to detail the importance of the order of change for liberalization outcomes.
Suicide by Competition? Authoritarian Institutional Adaptation and Regime Fragility
(2016) Bernhard, Michael; Edgell, Amanda B.; Lindberg, Staffan I.; V-Dem Institute
While it is clear that contemporary authoritarian incumbents use democratic emulation as a strategy in the hopes of stabilizing and extending their tenure in power, this does not mean it is always effective. Indeed, an extant literature presents strong evidence that the opening of the pursuit of power to electoral competition can make authoritarianism vulnerable. Unless it is mediated by other factors, democratic emulation by authoritarian incumbents cannot simultaneously both stabilize their rule and make it more vulnerable to democratic transitions. These two literatures leave us with a set of contradictory generalizations. Some scholars argue that reiterated multiparty competitive elections present a gradual path from authoritarianism to democracy. Can they at the same time be a source of authoritarian stability? In this paper we seek to resolve this paradox by employing a unique combination of event history modeling to assess how experiences with multiparty elections influence patterns of authoritarian survival and transition in 108 countries from 1946-2010. Our results suggest that while authoritarian regimes face increasing odds of failure during the first three iterated multiparty and competitive election cycles, subsequent iterated cycles are far less dangerous to their survival. Given that few authoritarian regimes survive past three elections, these findings should be seen as more supportive of the democratization by elections thesis than democratic emulation as a way to enhance authoritarian survival.
Worth the sacrifice? Illiberal and authoritarian practices during Covid-19
(2020-09) Maerz, Seraphine F.; Lührmann, Anna; Lachapelle, Jean; Edgell, Amanda B.; V-Dem Institute
Excessive use of emergency powers and limitations of media freedoms have raised concerns that Covid-19 is infecting democracy itself. How do government responses to Covid-19 violate democratic standards? How do such violations relate to the countries’ success in limiting the Covid-19 death tolls? We propose a novel conceptualization of which government responses to Covid-19 qualify as a violation of democratic standards and measure such violations using a regularly updated dataset covering 143 countries from March 2020 onward. Our data track seven types of violations of democratic standards for emergency measures during the Covid-19 pandemic: discriminatory measures, derogation of non-derogable rights, abusive enforcement, no time limit on emergency measures, disproportionate limitations on the role of the legislature, official disinformation campaigns, and restrictions on media freedoms. In this article, we provide a comprehensive overview of the extent to which governments have violated democratic standards in their response to Covid-19. Using a regression analysis, we find no relationship between violations of democratic standards for emergency measures and Covid-19 death rates. Thus, violations of democratic standards during the Covid-19 pandemic cannot be justified by the achievement of better public health outcomes. Rather, such crisis driven violations need to be carefully observed as they could signal autocratization.