Frequently asked questions about the GSoD Indices
We update the data on an annual basis, with new versions of the data set published around the middle of the year. Each update then covers all the events that happened up until the end of the previous calendar year. The GSoD Indices data set Version 8 was published in June 2024, and covers events up until 31 December 2023. While we carefully track political events after that date, the data on this site do not reflect events after that date.
The Indices measure 29 aspects of democracy for the period 1975 to 2023 in 174 countries across the world. The indices are divided into four main attributes of democracy, which contain a total of seventeen subattributes and eight sub-components, for a total of 29 aspects of democracy. The four attributes and seventeen subattributes are:
- Representation: Clean Elections, Inclusive Suffrage, Free Political Parties, Elected Government, Effective Parliament, Local Democracy
- Rights: Access to Justice, Basic Welfare, Civil Liberties, Political Equality
- Rule of Law: Judicial Independence, Absence of Corruption, Predictable Enforcement, Personal Integrity and Security
- Participation: Civil Society, Civic Engagement Electoral Participation, Direct Democracy, Local Democracy
For more information see The Global State of Democracy Indices Methodology: Conceptualization and Measurement Framework, available in the Data set and Resources section of this website.
Conceptually, the Global State of Democracy Indices differ from other measurements of democracy because they are rooted in International IDEA’s broad understanding of democracy as popular control over public decision-making and political equality. The two principles are in turn measured through four main attributes of democracy with a total of 17 subattributes, rather than a single index of democracy.
Technically, the Global State of Democracy Indices differ from other measurements in their large coverage of country—years (1975-2023), the variety of different types of sources, the availability of uncertainty estimates and the provision of scores over a broad range of attributes rather than a collapsed democracy score.
For more detailed information on specific differences to other measurements, see Section 4, ‘The Global State of Democracy Indices in comparison with extant measures’ in The Global State of Democracy Indices Methodology: Conceptualization and Measurement Framework.
The Indices are used by policy-makers, analysts, scholars, journalists and civil society organisations around the world to assess and compare the quality of democracy. For example, International IDEA, transnational advocacy organisations and research institutes employ the indicators to measure the extent to which states have built “effective, accountable and inclusive institutions”. This objective belongs to the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the member states of the United Nations in 2015.
Organisations concerned with democracy and development assistance use the indicators to identify priority countries and areas for policy interventions and benchmarks to assess the impact of their assistance. The data enable civil society organisations and media outlets to monitor the democratic performance of governments by comparing their government with other governments.
The Global State of Democracy Indices are the evidence base for International IDEAs flagship publication The Global State of Democracy. Drawing on the Global State of Democracy indices, rigorous comparative research and fact-based and peer-reviewed analysis, this report explores the challenges and opportunities facing democracy globally and regionally. It also provides recommendations to inform policy interventions. International IDEA also produces short information briefs through The Global State of Democracy (GSoD) In Focus series, which applies the GSoD Indices data to current issues, providing evidence-based analysis and insights into the contemporary democracy debate.
For quick references users can find a comprehensive list of all indicators used in the construction of the Global State of Democracy Indices in Annex B and Annex C of The Global State of Democracy Indices Methodology: Conceptualization and Measurement Framework. We also recommend that users consult the section Measuring the global state of democracy, to fully understand how the indicators are conceptually linked and the aggregation procedures used to develop the attributes and subattributes.
Primary data collection was only carried out by International IDEA for a few of the indicators, most notably International IDEA’s Voter Turnout Database, for data on voter turnout. All other data comes from existing data sets. The data include expert surveys, standards-based coding by research groups and analysts, observational data and composite measures from a total of 24 different data sources. Approximately one-half of the indicators used come from the Varieties of Democracy dataset.
The Indices are not intended to be a global ranking instrument, as they do not produce a single ‘democracy’ score per country. They do provide rankings at the attributes level, which allow countries to be compared to each other and other regions within these dimensions. The indices allow for a more nuanced analysis of the quality and performance of democracy and its various aspects over time.
Everyone has full and free access to the country-level data for all indices. The data can be downloaded from the Data set and Resources section of this website. Version 8 (2024) of the full data set containing the GSoD indices through the end of 2023 is available for download in Rdata, .csv and.xlsx formats.
The Global State of Democracy Indices are built upon International IDEA’s broad understanding of democracy as popular control over public decision-making and political equality. These principles can be achieved and organized in a variety of ways, and the principles can be fulfilled to varying degrees. This perspective has informed and influenced the development of a measurement framework that provides users with more nuanced information through multiple indices rather than a single index that collapses all the attributes into a single score. International IDEA also believes that this is more useful for policy-makers, which are the main target audience for the GSoD Indices. They often need more nuanced and more in-depth assessments to guide their programme interventions and identify specific areas for reform.
No, the Indices do not include a classification of regime types, such as democracy and autocracy.
As a general rule, the Global State of Democracy data set only includes country-year data for countries that have at least 250,000 inhabitants, from 1975. This has selection rule has been established due to the uneven availability of data on countries with fewer inhabitants. The total number of countries covered for the period 1975-2023 is 174. In 2023, we include data for 173 countries (East Germany is covered from 1975 to 1990).
The year 1975 was chosen to cover the time period since the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights took effect in 1976. These two sets of international norms overlap with most of the norms and values on which the GSoD Indices are based. This period also covers the commonly referred to “third wave of democratization” which serves as a common reference point for democratic trends. In addition, from a data perspective, there is more reliable and relevant high quality data available from 1975 onwards.
International IDEA’s broad conception of democracy draws on various understandings of democracy generally known as electoral democracy, liberal democracy, social democracy or participatory democracy. These notions are reflected in the attributes, subattributes and indicators constituting the GSoD Indices. International IDEA uses the electoral notion of democracy to distinguish democracies from hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes. By rejecting a single democracy index, International IDEA also refrains from favoring liberal democracy over other models of democracy. Rather, the GSoD Indices consider different ideas and realizations of democracy as potentially complementary, respecting the legitimate diversity of existing democracies. More information about how the GSoD framework intersects with popular conceptions of democracy is available in Annex A of the methodology document.
Information about country-level data in the Global State of Democracy indices can be explored from the Indices database and the full data set can be downloaded from the Data set and resources section of the website. Country profile pages are also accessible either by clicking on the country in the map, or through the button at the top of the map screen.
The Global State of Democracy publication contains good practice examples as well as an analysis of challenges on a selected number of countries, including appropriate case studies. For more information, please visit the Global State of Democracy publication.
The Indices assess the state of democracy in numbers ranging from 0 (lowest achievement) to 1 (highest achievement). A score of 0 refers to the worst performance in the entire sample of country–years covered by a particular indicator, while a score of 1 refers to the best country–year performance in the sample. This means that a score of, for example, 0.65 for country x in year 2018 on Predictable Enforcement ranks this country’s performance relative to the performance of all other 174 countries in Predictable Enforcement during the period from 1975 to 2022.
Thus, the score allows for precise and fine-grained comparisons between countries and also between different years for one country. A score of 0.65 would show that the country performs better than the average, but below countries with high levels of Predictable Enforcement.
To simplify the interpretation of the scores, International IDEA distinguishes three levels of performance for all attributes and subattributes: high, mid-range and low. Scores above 0.7 are classified as high, scores ranging between 0.4 and 0.7 are classified as mid-range, and scores below 0.4 are classified as low. A score of 0.65 would thus mean a mid-range performance on Predictable Enforcement.
Both 0.4 and 0.7 are absolute thresholds rather than percentiles distinguishing equally sized groups of countries. Such absolute thresholds capture the idea of distinct, crisp categories of performance more appropriately and make a country’s assessment less dependent on the performance of other countries.
The Global State of Democracy indices provide country scores in the form of snapshots per year or over time (since 1975) in relation to those key attributes the indices measure. In this way, the indices provide factual data on the situation of Representation, Rights, Rule of Law, and Participation. This can be used by citizens and policy makers alike as a key information source on democracy for advocacy purposes, dialogue or democratic reform programmes in the spirit of advancing, strengthening or safeguarding democracy.
When looking at a particular country or region it is very important to also compare with the regional and global average. This will give you the context necessary to fully understand the scores. Users should also refrain from making cross attribute comparisons. The Global State of Democracy indices were designed to capture several conceptually distinct attributes. Because of this a score on one attribute is not directly comparable to a score on another attribute. For more information users are advised to read The Global State of Democracy Indices Methodology: Conceptualization and Measurement Framework.
For most GSoD Indices, the yearly scores for each country are accompanied by uncertainty estimates. These uncertainty estimates are in the form of confidence intervals (margins of error) and reflect the statistically likely range for the country–year index scores based on the indicators used. The GSoD Indices confidence levels refer to one standard deviation below and above the estimated score. This means that about 68 per cent of the ‘true’ values would be found within these intervals. These confidence intervals allow users to analyze both between-country differences in particular years and within-country differences over time.
What this means is illustrated by the graph below. This graph shows the scores and confidence intervals for a small sample of example countries on the GSoD attribute Representation in 2022.
The graph indicates the extent to which confidence intervals for index scores can overlap between countries with different scores. For example, Sweden scored 0.887 on Representation in 2018, but the confidence interval for this score ranges between 0.848 and 0.927. These upper and lower bounds are marked by the red dashed lines in the graph above. Thus, we have a 68 percent certainty that Sweden’s correct or valid score on Representation is within this range. Although, for example, Australia scored 0.840 on Representation, almost 0.05 points lower than Sweden, we can not be certain that its score is significantly different from Sweden’s score because the confidence intervals for the two countries overlap.
Confidence intervals also help assessing the extent of changes over time, both within countries comparisons and between countries. The figure below illustrates the scores and related confidence intervals for Rule of Law in Argentina and Venezuela from 1990 to 2022.
In the first years of the period, the confidence bounds for the two countries overlap. Thus, even though the score for Venezuela is higher in 1990 than Argentina’s score, the difference is not significant. From about 1999, Argentina scores significantly better than Venezuela. There seem to be some fluctuations in Argentina after 2012, but these changes are not significant, as indicated by the overlapping confidence intervals for the various years. However, the scores Rule of Law in Venezuela experienced significant declines from 1999 until 2020. The apparent slight improvement in Venezuela between 2020 and 2022 is not statistically significant.
A significant change is when a country has a change in scores on one of the components of the GSoD Indices that goes beyond the bounds of the confidence intervals over a given time period. If the change is positive it is a significant advance and if it is negative it is a significant decline. Generally, the GSoD initiative looks at significant advances and declines at a five year interval although sometimes analysis is done at other interval levels. This analysis is useful for analyzing global developments by looking at how countries are developing, rather than the average scores of the Indices, which tend to drown out smaller developments at the country level. In the figure below you can see an example of such analysis. In this graph you can see the total number of countries with advances or declines on Credible Elections across a five year period. The total number of advancers and decliners for 2022 looks at the significant changes from 2017 to 2022. The trend below is a worrying one, with more countries declining than advancing from 2014 to 2022.
Due to missing data, the GSoDI do not feature aggregate scores for a few countries and years (0.3 per cent of the total sum of country-year scores for the GSoDI aspects). A detailed table of missing values for past versions of the GSoDI is included in the Technical Procedures Guide.
Of the 165 indicators forming the GSoDI data set, 78 come from the Varieties of Democracy project (V-Dem), a large-scale expert survey measuring democracy. The V-Dem methodology assumes five or more experts to rate these indicators. However, for a few countries and indicators V-Dem has failed to achieve this target for the period since 2013. According to the V-Dem Codebook, “this at times result in significant changes in point estimates as a consequence of self-selected attrition of Country Experts, rather than actual changes in the country” (Coppedge, M. et al., V-Dem Dataset v 13 Codebook, 2023, p. 27).
These problems also affect the GSoD Indices, although their impact is limited since all GSoD Indices are based on several indicators, including other source data, and the GSoD aggregation procedure reduces the influence of deviating scores. Nevertheless, caution should be applied in analyzing the following countries: United Arab Emirates, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Congo, Haiti, Bahrain. These countries have relatively high shares of V-Dem indicators coded by less than four experts with larger weights within aggregate GSoD indicators. Of the GSoDI subattributes, Local Democracy and Judicial Independence are most affected by V-Dem indicators with few coders. Detailed information on the numbers of coders per country, year and variable can be obtained from V-Dem.
The following resources are available for those interested in more information on how we constructed the Global State of Democracy indices:
If you have more questions about the indices you can contact us by email at GSoD.indices@idea.int. We look forward to hearing from you!