Browsing by Author "Mechkova, Valeriya"

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Constraining Governments: New indices of vertical, horizontal and diagonal accountability
(2017) Lührmann, Anna; Marquardt, Kyle L.; Mechkova, Valeriya; V-Dem Institute
Accountability - constraints on the government’s use of political power - is one of the cornerstones of good governance. However, conceptual stretching and a lack of reliable measures have limited cross-national research and comparisons regarding the role of both accountability writ large and its different sub-types. To address this research gap, we use the V-Dem dataset and Bayesian statistical models to develop new ways to conceptualize and measure accountability and its core dimensions. We provide indices capturing the extent to which governments are accountable to citizens (vertical accountability), other state institutions (horizontal accountability) and the media and civil society (diagonal accountability), as well as an aggregate index that incorporates the three sub-types. These indices cover virtually all countries from 1900 to today. We demonstrate the validity of our new measures by analyzing trends from key countries, as well as by demonstrating that the measures are positively related to development outcomes such as health and education.
Democracy at Dusk?
(2017) Lührmann, Anna; Lindberg, Staffan I.; Mechkova, Valeriya; Olin, Moa; Piccinelli Casagrande, Francesco; Sanhueza Petrarca, Constanza; Saxer, Laura; V-Dem Institute
Democracy for All?
(2018) Lührmann, Anna; Dahlum, Sirianne; Lindberg, Staffan I.; Maxwell, Laura; Mechkova, Valeriya; Olin, Moa; Pillai, Shreeya; Sanhueza Petrarca, Constanza; Sigman, Rachel; Stepanova, Natalia; V-Dem Institute
Does Democracy or Good Governance Enhance Health? New Empirical Evidence 1900-2012
(2015) Wang, Yi-ting; Mechkova, Valeriya; Andersson, Frida; V-Dem Institute
It has been long debated whether regime types have impacts on human development. More specifically, compared to authoritarianism, are democracies more likely to provide public goods, including infrastructure that improve food provision and health care, and thus enhance health? Some studies support an optimistic view, and argue that with the accountability mechanisms of democratic elections, democracy is helpful in improving health. Some recent studies challenge the optimistic argument, and point out good governance, rather than regime types, as a more crucial determinant of human development. Using a newly collected dataset that covers 173 countries over the years 1900-2012 and contains more nuanced measures than commonly used, we intend to disentangle the debate. The results suggest that across models with various specifications, regime types have more consistent effects than quality of government on health outcomes throughout the entire period. Furthermore, we find that the mixed results of extant studies are due to that 1) the commonly used governance indicators are measured only for the recent decades, and the sample does not reflect the entire range of variation; 2) the positive effects of democracy are especially salient once the level of democracy has achieved certain threshold; 3) the positive effects of democracy are especially stable when both vertical and horizontal accountability mechanisms are improved.
Female Empowerment and Economic Growth
(2020-06) Dahlum, Sirianne; Knutsen, Carl Henrik; Mechkova, Valeriya; V-Dem Institute
We discuss how inclusive institutions enhance technological change, the main driver of long-term economic growth. Specifically, institutions that promote female political empowerment advance technological change through a) increasing the number and variability of new ideas introduced in the economy and b) improving the selection of more efficient ideas. We test different implications from our argument by measuring three aspects of empowerment - descriptive representation, civil liberties protection, and civil society participation - across 182 countries and 221 years. Empowerment is positively related to subsequent growth, even when accounting for initial differences in income, past growth rates, democracy, and country- and year-fixed effects. The three sub-components of empowerment are also, individually, related to growth, although not as strongly as the aggregated concept. The relationship is retained across different regimes, time periods, and geographic contexts, but is clearer for "Non-Western" countries. Finally, empowerment enhances TFP growth, a proxy for technological change.
Gendered Accountability: When and Why Do Women's Policy Priorities Get Implemented?
(2019) Mechkova, Valeriya; Carlitz, Ruth; V-Dem Institute
The past two decades have seen dramatic increases in women occupying positions of political power. Such developments have been welcomed as a means of achieving better outcomes for women in their everyday lives. We interrogate this proposition, developing a "gendered accountability" framework to the delineate conditions under which female representation should have its desired effects. Our empirical analysis applies this framework to sub-Saharan Africa, home to the largest increase in women's political representation in recent years. We find that having more women in the legislature is robustly associated with reduced infant and child mortality as well as greater spending on health. The effect on infant mortality is magnied when women are more active in civil society, and constrained to countries that have gender quotas and a proportional electoral system. We do not, however, find consistent evidence that maternal mortality and access to clean water respond to female representation.
The Accountability Sequence: From De-jure to De-facto Constraints on Governments
(2017) Mechkova, Valeriya; Lührmann, Anna; Lindberg, Staffan I.; V-Dem Institute
Accountability is one of the cornerstones of good governance. Establishing accountable governments is a top priority on the international development agenda. Yet, scholars and democracy practitioners know little about how accountability mechanisms develop and thus can be supported by international and national actors. The present study tackles the questions of how, and in what sequence accountability sub-types develop. We consider not only vertical (elections and political parties) and horizontal accountability (legislature, judiciary and other oversight bodies), but also diagonal accountability (civil society and media) in both their de-jure and the de-facto dimensions. By utilizing novel sequencing methods, we study their sequential relationships in 173 countries from 1900 to the present with data from the new V-Dem dataset. Considering the long-term dimensions of institution building, this study indicates that most aspects of de-facto vertical accountability precede other forms of accountability. Effective institutions of horizontal accountability – such as vigorous parliaments and independent high courts – evolve rather late in the sequence and build on progress in many other areas.
The Inequality of Fraud. Exploring the effect of societal inequality on electoral misconduct.
(2014-07-21) Mechkova, Valeriya; Göteborgs universitet/Statsvetenskapliga institutionen; University of Gothenburg/Department of Political Science
The relationship between inequlity and democracy has been a subject to many academic studies. Yet no rigorous explanation has been offered about the connection between them. The present thesis engages in this debate by analyzing the effect of societal inequality on the democratic quality of elections. The hypothesis being tested is that the more the resources in society are unequally distributed, the greater the incentives and opportunities for the incumbent are to use illicit tactics to retain a privileged position. At the same time marginalized groups will be more willing to break the democratic norms in order to defend their rights better and access more power. The new V-Dem data allows for the first time to test these arguments in a comprehensive comparative analysis covering 113 years of history for 139 countries. Using a time-series cross-sectional regression model, the study tests whether and how social, economic and/or political inequality affects the level of electoral misconduct. One contribution of this study is that a new measure for electoral fraud is proposed that encompasses all legal and illegal tactics used by competitors to distort the electoral outcome. The empirical findings corroborate that on average inequality based on social group differences is associated with electoral misconduct. The frequency of fraud is higher when the underlying social differences are translated into the political life or affect civil liberties access.
Understanding the Conditions and Consequences of Women’s Political Representation
(2021-12-17) Mechkova, Valeriya
In recent decades, women’s ability to engage in politics and civil society has risen dramatically across the globe. What has the increase in the number of women in politics, their “descriptive representation”, meant in substantive terms for women-citizens but also for societies in general? This dissertation contributes to clarifying the effects of descriptive representation of women on substantive representation, defined as the policy areas women tend to prioritize to a higher degree than men. The papers in the dissertation compare the effects of female representation on a comprehensive set of results: from policy inputs such as spending priorities to policy outcomes like infant mortality rates. Further, the dissertation theoretically clarifies and empirically tests the societal and institutional conditions that make it more or less likely for this descriptive-substantive link to work in practice. Across five papers utilizing comparative and historical datasets, I show that institutional efforts to increase representation (e.g., gender quotas) lead to gains in substantive representation. My findings also indicate that women representatives are successful in advancing the priorities of women as a group in both autocracies and democracies. This positive effect is partially explained by the activism of women-led civil society organizations. However, widespread corruption can undermine these efforts, and even lead to diminished development outcomes. In sum, my dissertation demonstrates that women's political representation can advance women's priorities, but this is unlikely to happen absent certain societal and institutional conditions.
When and Where do Elections Matter? A Global Test of the Democratization by Elections Hypothesis, 1900-2012
(2015) Edgell, Amanda; Mechkova, Valeriya; Bernhard, Michael; Lindberg, Staffan I.; V-Dem Institute
To date studies assessing the democratizing effects of elections have produced mixed results. While findings suggest that successive uninterrupted election cycles in a global sample (Teorell and Hadenius 2009) and within sub-Saharan Africa (Lindberg 2006, 2009) have a robust positive impact on democratization, tests in other regions have been less encouraging. In particular, negative empirical findings in Latin America (McCoy and Hartlyn 2009) and Postcommunist Europe (Kaya and Bernhard 2013) call into question whether the democratizing effect of elections is isolated to the sub-Saharan region. In addition, the hypothesis has been subject to conceptual criticism (Lust-Okar 2009). This paper poses a comprehensive and global set of tests on the democratizing effect of elections, assessing the scope of the argument both geographically and temporally. We test whether elections have a democratizing effect in specific regions, in specific time periods, and globally. In particular we assess whether the effects are largely confined to Africa, during the third wave, or if this is a more general phenomenon. We find consistent support that the reiteration of contested multiparty elections leads to the improvement of rule of law and the quality of civil rights protections.