Abstract The Varieties of Democracy (V–Dem) project relies on country experts who code a
host of ordinal variables, providing subjective ratings of latent-that is, not directly observable …

The political empowerment of women is a societal process crucial to development and
progress. The V-Dem women's political empowerment index (WPEI) provides information …

Although there is a broad consensus among political scientists that polarization is
detrimental to democracy, very few empirically investigate the links between political …

While the definition of extended conceptions of democracy has been widely discussed, the
measurement of these constructs has not attracted similar attention. In this article we present …

How do periods of conflict and peace shape women's empowerment around the world?
While existing studies have demonstrated that gender inequalities contribute to the …

This study tests the relationship between democracy and population health. Some studies
argue that democracies are more likely than authoritarian regimes to provide public goods …

Research suggests that civil society mobilization together with the ratification of human
rights treaties put pressure on governments to improve their human rights practices. An …

Political parties in the develo** world often face serious electoral crises; from one election
to the next, parties can be decisively voted out of national office. What happens to a party …

We theorize that three distinct structures of democratic constraint explain why more
democratic dyads do not engage in military conflict with each other. We build on earlier …

Political scientists routinely face the challenge of assessing the quality (validity and
reliability) of measures in order to use them in substantive research. While stand-alone …