Generate a data frame containing all the democracy measures accessible from this package — generate_democracy_scores

This function automates the process of joining together all the archived and downloadable datasets in this package, producing a comprehensive data frame with every democracy measure. It automatically converts each democracy measure to a numeric value, ensures that larger values are associated with more democracy, and that all country-years are appropriately matched.

Usage

generate_democracy_scores_dataset(
  datasets,
  selection,
  output_format = "long",
  use_extended = TRUE,
  verbose = TRUE,
  force_redownload = FALSE,
  scale_scores = FALSE,
  keep_only_last_in_year = TRUE,
  uds_release_year = c(2014, 2011, 2010),
  svmdi_release_year = c(2020, 2016),
  exclude_pmm_duplicates = TRUE,
  prefer_successor = TRUE,
  fix_PIPE = TRUE,
  enforce_GW_enddates = FALSE
)

Arguments

datasets

Character vector indicating which datasets to use in producing the combined data frame. Can be any or all of (an unambiguous abbreviation of) "anckar", "anrr", "LIED", "PIPE", "arat_pmm", "blm", "blm_pmm", "bmr", "bnr", "bnr_extended", "bti", "bollen_pmm", "doorenspleet", "eiu", "fh_pmm", "gwf_all", "gwf_all_extended", "hadenius_pmm", "kailitz", "magaloni", "magaloni_extended", "mainwaring", "mainwaring_pmm", "munck_pmm", "pacl", "pacl_pmm", "pacl_update", "peps", "pitf", "polity_pmm", "polyarchy", "polyarchy_dimensions", "polyarchy_pmm", "prc_gasiorowski", "prc_pmm", "svmdi", "svolik_regime", "uds", "ulfelder", "ulfelder_extended", "utip", "vanhanen", "vdem", "wahman_teorell_hadenius", "reign" or "REIGN", "polityIV", "polity5", "fh", "fh_electoral", "wgi". It can also be empty; the default is all of them.

selection

A regular expression for selecting among the datasets. Optional.

output_format

Character. Whether to output a "wide" (each measure of democracy in a separate column) or a "long" (a column with measure names, a column with values) version of the data frame. Default is "long".

use_extended

Whether to use "extended" (that is, including values before 1945 for some regimes) versions of some datasets (gwf, ulfelder, bnr, and magaloni). Default is TRUE.

verbose

Provides a running commentary on what the function is is doing. Default is TRUE.

force_redownload

Whether to re-download all datasets that can be re-downloaded, including those archived with this package. Used only for debugging; default is FALSE.

scale_scores

Whether to scale each measure (substracting their mean and dividing by their standard deviation). Default is FALSE.

keep_only_last_in_year

Whether to keep only the last regime measurement in a given country-year. Some datasets (e.g., prc, reign) contain more than one regime measurement per country-year in some cases (if the regime changed multiple times during the year); setting this to TRUE discards all except the regime measurement as of 31 December of the year, the standard practice in most datasets. Default is TRUE. This setting is only of interest if you set output_format = "long", since it is ignored when output_format = "wide", which automatically discards all regime measurements except the last in the year.

uds_release_year

Which release of the original uds dataset to include. Defaults to the latest, 2014. Can be 2014, 2011, or 2010, or all of them.

svmdi_release_year

Which release of the svmdi dataset to include. Defaults to the latest, 2020. Can be 2020 or 2016, or both of them.

exclude_pmm_duplicates

Whether to exclude versions of some measures found in Pemstein, Meserve, and Melton's replication dataset for their 2010 piece introducing the Unified Democracy Scores (Pemstein, Meserve, and Melton 2010, 2013). See blm_pmm, prc_pmm, fh_pmm, pacl_pmm, vanhanen_pmm, and polity_pmm for details. This is included mostly to extend or replicate the uds scores. Default is TRUE; set to FALSE to keep these.

prefer_successor

In some cases (e.g., Italy 1861) some datasets contain two measurements in the same year: one for the precursor state (Piedmont-Sardinia, which is Italy/Sardinia in extended_country_name) and one for the successor state (unified Italy). The problem affects the following entities in different datasets: Ethiopia (Eritrea split in 1993); Germany (reunification in 1993); Italy (unification in 1861, previously Piedmont-Sardinia); Pakistan (Bangladesh split in 1971); the Soviet Union (creation in 1922; dissolution in 1991); Sudan (South Sudan split in 2011); Vietnam (1945-1953 period and reunification in 1976); Yemen (unification in 1990); Yugoslavia (1991 breakup). Setting prefer_successor to TRUE ensures the successor state is the only measurement included, where the successor state is preferentially the state in the Gleditsch-Ward system. Setting it to FALSE ensures both measurements are included, which results in two measurements for the same country-year (where country means the country in extended_country_name).

fix_PIPE

The PIPE dataset uses a particularly tangled state system, measuring some countries when they should not exist, or splitting some countries into historical and modern states but measuring both during the historical period:

extended_country_name	PIPE_country	min_year	max_year
Austria	Austria	1918	1918
Austria	Austria-Hungary (Austria)	1918	1918
Austria-Hungary	Austria-Hungary (Austria)	1848	1917
Austria-Hungary	Austria-Hungary (Hungary)	1848	1917
Czechoslovakia	Czech Republic	1990	1992
Czechoslovakia	Czechoslovakia	1990	1992
German Federal Republic	Germany	1990	1990
German Federal Republic	Germanywest	1990	1990
Korea	North Korea	1820	1870
Korea	South Korea	1820	1870
Pakistan	Pakistan	1950	1970
Pakistan	Pakistanincludingbangladesh	1950	1970
Turkey (Ottoman Empire)	Ottoman Empire	1820	1913
Turkey (Ottoman Empire)	Turkey	1820	1913
Vietnam, Democratic Republic of	Vietnam	1954	1975
Vietnam, Democratic Republic of	Vietnam, North	1954	1975
Yemen (Arab Republic of Yemen)	Yemen	1990	1990
Yemen (Arab Republic of Yemen)	Yemennorth	1990	1990
Yugoslavia	Serbia	1990	1990
Yugoslavia	Serbia And Montenegro	1991	1991
Yugoslavia	Yugoslavia	1990	1991

Some of these are fixed by setting prefer_successor to TRUE (the default) but others do not make much sense. fix_PIPE = TRUE (the default) deletes Austria-Hungary entirely (as there is no principled choice about which half to retain); removes the Czech Republic from the period 1990-1992; removes North and South Korea from the 19th century; assumes Pakistan from 1950-1970 must include Bangladesh, and Turkey from 1820-1913 refers to the Ottoman Empire; removes unified Vietnam from the period 1954-1975, Serbia from 1990, and Serbia and Montenegro from 1990 to 1991 (leaving only Yugoslabia from 1990 to 1991).

enforce_GW_enddates

This enforces the Gleditsch-Ward enddates of historical states, so they are not measured after their dissolution. This only affects a limited number of entities: Tibet (ends in 1950), Czechoslovakia (ends in 1992), Gran Colombia (ends in 1831; Polity measures it until 1832), the Vatican (identified with the Papal States, ends in 1870) and Zanzibar (ends in 1964). The default is FALSE.

Value

A tibble::tibble() with the selected democracy measures and state system information, in two versions: "long" and "wide". These contain the following variables:

Standard descriptive variables (generated by this package)

extended_country_name: The name of the country in the Gleditsch-Ward system of states, or the official name of the entity (for non-sovereign entities and states not in the Gleditsch and Ward system of states) or else a common name for disputed cases that do not have an official name (e.g., Western Sahara, Hyderabad). The Gleditsch and Ward scheme sometimes indicates the common name of the country and (in parentheses) the name of an earlier incarnation of the state: thus, they have Germany (Prussia), Russia (Soviet Union), Madagascar (Malagasy), etc. For details, see Gleditsch, Kristian S. & Michael D. Ward. 1999. "Interstate System Membership: A Revised List of the Independent States since 1816." International Interactions 25: 393-413. The list can be found at http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~ksg/statelist.html.
GWn: Gleditsch and Ward's numeric country code, from the Gleditsch and Ward list of independent states.
cown: The Correlates of War numeric country code, 2016 version. This differs from Gleditsch and Ward's numeric country code in a few cases. See http://www.correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/state-system-membership for the full list.
in_GW_system: Whether the state is "in system" (that is, is independent and sovereign), according to Gleditsch and Ward, for this particular date. Matches at the end of the year; so, for example South Vietnam 1975 is FALSE because, according to Gleditsch and Ward, the country ended on April 1975 (being absorbed by North Vietnam). It is also TRUE for dates beyond 2012 for countries that did not end by then, depsite the fact that the Gleditsch and Ward list has not been updated since.

Long version

In the "long" version of the dataset (output_format = "long"), the output data frame also contains the following variables:

year: The calendar year. Most measures of democracy reflect the country's situation as of 31 December of the year. If keep_last_in_year = FALSE (and format = "long"), a single country year may nevertheless contain more than one measurement for some measures (e.g., prc).
measure: The name of the measure. (e.g., "blm", "fh_total_reversed").
variable: The numerical value of the measure, in the original scale (if scale_scores = FALSE) or as a z-score (if scale_scores = TRUE).
index_type: The index type (dichotomous, trichotomous, ordinal/graded, continuous).
dataset: The name of the dataset.

Wide version

In the "wide" version of the dataset (output_format = "wide"), the output data frame can also contain any of the following variables (in the scales described below, unless scale_scores = TRUE, in which case the measures are converted to z-scores):

year: The calendar year. In the "wide" version, all measures of democracy reflect the country's situation as of 31 December of the year as much as possible.
anckar_democracy: The anckar measure of democracy, as a numeric value. Up to 2010 this should be identical to bmr_democracy_omitteddata. 0 = non-democracy, 1 = democracy.
arat: The original arat measure of democracy, converted to numeric form. Ranges from 29 (least democratic) to 109 (most democratic). See arat for details.
anrr_democracy: The anrr measure of democracy, as a numeric value. 0 = non-democracy, 1 = democracy.
blm: The blm measure of democracy, as a numeric value. Can be 0 (authoritarian), 0.5 (hybrid), or 1 (democracy).
bmr_democracy: The bmr measure of democracy, as a numeric value. Can be 0 (non-democracy) or 1 (democracy).
bmr_democracy_omitteddata: According to the bmr codebook, "this is the same measure as bmr, except it records an NA for countries occupied during an international war (e.g., the Netherlands 1940-44) or experiencing state collapse during a civil war (e.g., Lebanon 1976-89). The democracy variable instead fills in these years as continuations of the same regime type." There are some -1 values that I've converted to NA (the measure is supposed to be between 0 and 1).
bmr_democracy_femalesuffrage: According to the bmr codebook, this is the same measure as bmr, except that it also requires that at least half of adult women have the right to vote. 30 countries change values.
bnr: The bnr event measure of democracy, reversed, so that 0 indicates non-democracy and 1 indicates democracy. Since the event variable of the bnr dataset only codes terminations of democracy (ignoring years when the country is non-democratic), this variable is mostly equal to 1.
bnr_extended: The bnr_extended variable, with 0 indicating non-democracy and 1 indicating democracy. See the documentation for bnr_extended for details of how this variable extends bnr, filling in years of non-democracy back to 1913.
bti: The bti - Berteslmann Transformation Democracy Status index. Ranges from 1 to 10.
doorenspleet: The doorenspleet measure of democracy, with 1 indicating non-democracy and 2 indicating democracy.
eiu: The eiu measure of democracy, ranging from 0 (least democratic) to 10 (most democratic). The report says that the index "is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture" which form "one interrelated whole"
fh_electoral: The fh_electoral measure of electoral democracy, with 0 indicating a lack of electoral democracy, 1 indicating electoral democracy status.
fh_total_reversed: The Freedom House combined measure of political and civil rights, reversed, so that 0 is least free and 12 is most free.
gwf_democracy: A measure of democracy from gwf_all, obtained by coding all democracies as 1 and all non-democracies, including all non-democratic nonautocracies, as 0.
gwf_democracy_extended: A measure of democracy from gwf_all_extended, obtained by coding all democracies as 1 and all non-democracies, including all non-democratic nonautocracies, as 0. See the documentation for gwf_all_extended for details on how the dataset was extended to the period before 1945 for some countries.
gwf_democracy_strict: A measure of democracy from gwf_all, obtained by coding all democracies as 1 and all non-democracies as 0. It is NA for all non-democratic non-autocracies (e.g., warlord regimes, foreign occupation, etc.).
gwf_democracy_extended_strict: A measure of democracy from gwf_all_extended, obtained by coding all democracies as 1 and all non-democracies as 0. It is NA for all non-democratic non-autocracies (e.g., warlord regimes, foreign occupation, etc.). See the documentation for gwf_all_extended for details on how the dataset was extended to the period before 1945 for some countries.
kailitz_binary: A measure of democracy from kailitz, obtained by coding all liberal democracies as 1 and all other regimes as 0.
kailitz_tri: A trichotomous measure of democracy from kailitz, obtained by coding all liberal democracies as 2, all electoral autocracies as 1, and all other regimes as 0.
lexical_index: The LIED measure of electoral democracy, ranging from 0 to 6.
lexical_index_plus: The LIED measure of polyarchy, ranging from 0 to 7 (including political liberties).
magaloni_democracy: A measure of democracy from magaloni, obtained by coding all democracies as 1 and all non-democracies as 0.
magaloni_democracy_extended: A measure of democracy from magaloni_extended, obtained by coding all democracies as 1 and all non-democracies as 0. See the documentation for magaloni_extended for details on how the dataset was extended to the period before 1950 for some countries.
mainwaring: The measure of democracy from mainwaring, where 0 is non-democracy, 0.5 represents hybrid regimes, and 1 is democracy.
pacl: The measure of democracy from pacl, where 0 is non-democracy, and 1 is democracy.
pacl_update: The measure of democracy from pacl_update, where 0 is non-democracy, and 1 is democracy.
PEPS1i, PEPS1q, PEPS1v, PEPS2i, PEPS2q, PEPS2v: The measures of democracy from peps. Higher values indicate more democracy.
PIPE_democracy, PIPE_regime: The measures of democracy from PIPE. Higher values indicate more democracy. See the documentation of PIPE for large caveats - these measures are calculated on the basis of unclear instructions and may contain errors.
pitf, pitf_binary: The measures of democracy from pitf, converted to numberic values. Higher values indicate more democracy.
pmm_arat: The measure of democracy in arat_pmm.
pmm_blm: The measure of democracy in blm_pmm.
pmm_bollen: The measure of democracy in bollen_pmm.
pmm_fh: The measure of democracy in fh_pmm. Check the documentation of fh_pmm for caveats.
pmm_hadenius: The measure of democracy in hadenius_pmm.
pmm_mainwaring: The measure of democracy in mainwaring_pmm.
pmm_munck: The measure of democracy in munck_pmm.
pmm_pacl: The measure of democracy in pacl_pmm.
pmm_polity: The measure of democracy in polity_pmm. Check the documentation of polity_pmm for caveats.
pmm_polyarchy: The measure of democracy in polyarchy_pmm.
pmm_prc: The measure of democracy in prc_pmm. Check the documentation of prc_pmm for caveats.
pmm_vanhanen: The measure of democracy in vanhanen_pmm. Check the documentation of vanhanen_pmm for caveats.
polity: The polity measure of democracy in polity (version 5, with NAs for -88, -77, -66).
polity2: The polity2 measure of democracy in polity (version 5, interpolated for periods of interregnum, occupation, and the like - see documentation in the polity manual).
polityIV: The polity measure of democracy in polity (version IV, with NAs for -88, -77, -66).
polity2IV: The polity2 measure of democracy in polity (version IV, interpolated for periods of interregnum, occupation, and the like - see documentation in the polity manual).
polyarchy_contestation_dimension: The contestation dimension (CONTEST) in polyarchy_dimensions.
polyarchy_inclusion_dimension: The inclusion dimension (INCLUS) in polyarchy_dimensions.
polyarchy_original_contestation: The contestation dimension (cont) in polyarchy.
polyarchy_original_polyarchy: The original polyarchy scale (poly) in polyarchy, reversed so that higher values imply more democracy. The codebook suggests this was superceded by polyarchy_original_contestation.
prc: The measure of democracy in prc, where 1 is non-democracy, 3 are hybrid regimes, and 4 are democracies. Transitional regimes (2 in the original scale) are coded NA.
reign_democracy: A measure of democracy from reign, obtained by coding all presidential and parliamentary democracies as 1, all other regimes as 0.
csvmdi: The continuous Support Vector Machine democracy index from svmdi, 2020 version.
svmdi_2016: The continuous Support Vector Machine democracy index from svmdi, 2016 version.
dsvmdi: The dichotomous Support Vector Machine democracy index from svmdi, 2020 version.
svolik_democracy: A measure of democracy from svolik_regime. 0 = non-democracy, 1 = democracy.
uds_2010_mean, uds_2010_median, uds_2011_mean, uds_2011_median, uds_2014_mean, uds_2014_median: The mean and median posterior scores of the uds index (2010, 2011, and 2014 releases). Higher values are more democratic.
ulfelder_democracy: The dichotmous measure of democracy in ulfelder.
ulfelder_democracy_extended: The dichotomous measure of democracy in ulfelder_extended.
utip_dichotomous: A dichotomous measure of democracy from utip. Equals 1 if the regime is a social democracy, conservative democracy, or one party democracy, 0 otherwise.
utip_dichotomous_strict: A dichotomous measure of democracy from utip. Equals 1 if the regime is a social democracy or conservative democracy, 0 otherwise.
utip_trichotomous: A trichotomous measure of democracy from utip. Equals 2 if the regime is a social democracy or conservative democracy, 1 if it is a one-party democracy, 0 otherwise.
vanhanen_competition: The competition index from vanhanen.
vanhanen_democratization: The democratization index from vanhanen.
vanhanen_participation: The participation index from vanhanen.
vaporeg_binary_strict: A dichotomous measure of democracy from the vaporeg dataset. Coded as 1 if the regime is classified as a full democracy (VaPoReg_s = 10), and 0 otherwise. This strict definition excludes semi-democracies and other intermediate forms. See vaporeg for details.
vaporeg_binary_non_strict: A less restrictive dichotomous measure of democracy from vaporeg, coded as 1 if the regime is a full democracy (VaPoReg_s = 10) or a semi-democracy (VaPoReg_s = 20), and 0 otherwise. See vaporeg for details.
vaporeg_trichotomous: A trichotomous democracy measure from vaporeg, based on the VaPoReg_s classification. Coded as 2 for full democracies (10), 1 for semi-democracies (20), and 0 for all other regime types. This measure distinguishes between fully and partially democratic regimes. See vaporeg for details.
v2x_api: The additive polyarchy index from vdem.
v2x_delibdem: The deliberative democracy index from vdem.
v2x_egaldem: The egalitarian democracy index from vdem.
v2x_libdem: The liberal democracy index from vdem.
v2x_mpi: The multiplicative polyarchy index from vdem.
v2x_partipdem: The participative democracy index from vdem.
v2x_polyarchy: The polyarchy (electoral democracy) index from vdem.
wgi_democracy: The voice and accountability index from wgi.
wth_democ1: A dichotomous measure of democracy from wahman_teorell_hadenius, obtaining by coding 1 all democracies according to the regime1ny variable, 0 all other regimes.
wth_democrobust: A dichotomous measure of democracy from wahman_teorell_hadenius, obtaining by coding 1 all democracies according to the regimenyrobust variable, 0 all other regimes.

State-system choices

State system choices are not always straightforward or clear. Most democracy datasets use some version of the Correlates of War system of states, though not consistently or entirely correctly (which is why this package uses country_year_coder). There are a number of alternatives, including the Gleditsch and Ward system, the Polity system (both based on the COW system, with some modifications), and the V-Dem system (wich is at the basis of LIED, though LIED also draws on the idiosyncratic PIPE system). Freedom House and VaPoReg also develop their own panel of states, including many units considered non-sovereign by others. I have opted for maximal coverage (including all non-sovereign units), with three exceptions.

First, the default is to prefer the successor state where a country-year unit is measured twice in a single year (for the precursor and the successor state). This setting affects Ethiopia (Eritrea split in 1993); Germany (reunification in 1993); Italy (unification in 1861, previously Piedmont-Sardinia); Pakistan (Bangladesh split in 1971); the Soviet Union (creation in 1922; dissolution in 1991); Sudan (South Sudan split in 2011); Vietnam (1945-1953 period and reunification in 1976); Yemen (unification in 1990); Yugoslavia (1991 breakup). Use prefer_successor = FALSE to override.

Second, the default is to delete various entities in the PIPE dataset that are measured before their appearance as states (e.g., North and South Korea in the 19th century). To keep these entities, use fix_PIPE = FALSE.

Finally, whenever there is more than one measurement per year, I keep only the last one (as far as I can determine it); use keep_only_last_in_year = FALSE to override. I also keep the last year for no longer existing entities, but delete any subsequent years (if they appear). Thus the following entities should have no observations in the years after their dissolution:

extended_country_name	panel	dissolution_date	last_observation
Austria-Hungary	GWn	1918-11-13	1918
Baden	GWn	1871-01-17	1871
Bavaria	GWn	1871-01-17	1871
British Mandate of Palestine	none	1948-05-14	1948
Czechoslovakia	GWn	1992-12-31	1992
German Democratic Republic	GWn	1990-10-02	1990
Germany (Prussia)	GWn	1945-05-07	1945
Hanover	GWn	1871-01-17	1871
Hesse-Kassel (Electoral)	GWn	1871-01-17	1871
Hesse-Darmstadt (Ducal)	GWn	1871-01-17	1871
Mecklenburg-Schwerin	GWn	1871-01-17	1871
Modena	GWn	1861-03-16	1861
Papal States	GWn	1870-09-22	1870
Parma	GWn	1861-03-16	1860
Vietnam, Republic of	GWn	1975-04-30	1974
Sardinia	polity	1861-03-16	1861
Saxony	GWn	1871-01-17	1871
Tuscany	GWn	1861-03-16	1861
Sicily (Two Sicilies)	GWn	1861-03-16	1861
Wurttemberg	GWn	1871-01-17	1871
Yemen, People's Republic of	GWn	1990-05-21	1990
Yugoslavia	GWn	2006-06-04	2006
Zanzibar	GWn	1964-04-26	1964
Great Colombia	GWn	1830-09-22	1830
Orange Free State	GWn	1910-05-30	1910
Tibet	GWn	1950-10-01	1950
Transvaal	GWn	1910-05-30	1910
United Provinces of Central America	GWn	1839-12-31	1839

As noted, Korea and Vietnam do contain observations for years after their exit from the system of states in the Gleditsch and Ward panel in 1910 and 1893, respectively, since they have extant successors and are measured by some datasets for those periods:

extended_country_name	panel	dissolution_date
Korea	GWn	1910-08-22
Vietnam (Annam/Cochin China/Tonkin)	GWn	1893-01-01

The treatment of Palestine is also complicated. Several datasets (e.g., vdem, fh, and LIED) contain separate measurements for the West Bank and Gaza; fh includes the West Bank, Gaza, and "Israeli-Occupied Territories" (I'm assuming the occupied territories in Lebanon and Syria). I've labeled them as follows:

extended_country_name	original_country_name	dataset	min_year	max_year
British Mandate of Palestine	Palestine	vaporeg	1919	1947
British Mandate of Palestine	Palestine/British Mandate	LIED	1918	1947
British Mandate of Palestine	Palestine/British Mandate	vdem	1918	1947
Israeli-Occupied Territories	Israeli-Occupied Territories	fh	1996	2009
Palestine, State of	Palestine	eiu	2006	2024
Palestine, State of	Palestine	vaporeg	1948	2006
Palestine, State of	Palestinian Authority-Administered Territories	fh	1996	2009
Palestine, State of	West Bank and Gaza	wgi_democracy	1996	2023
Palestine, State of	West Bank and Gaza Strip	fh	1977	1995
Palestine, State of/Gaza Strip Only	Gaza Strip	fh	2010	2024
Palestine, State of/Gaza Strip Only	Palestine Gaza Strip	vaporeg	2007	2024
Palestine, State of/Gaza Strip Only	Palestine/Gaza	LIED	1948	2023
Palestine, State of/Gaza Strip Only	Palestine/Gaza	vdem	1948	2024
Palestine, State of/West Bank Only	Palestine West Bank	vaporeg	2007	2024
Palestine, State of/West Bank Only	Palestine/West Bank	LIED	1948	2023
Palestine, State of/West Bank Only	Palestine/West Bank	vdem	1948	2024
Palestine, State of/West Bank Only	West Bank	fh	2010	2024

There are some other oddities, primarily concerning fh and the polity and Polity-derived datasets such as pitf. fh includes a measure for the "Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine"; I've left it as is (extended_country_name = "Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine", not allocated to either Ukraine or Russia). And polity includes separate observations for both Russia 1922 and USSR 1922; I've excluded the USSR 1922 observation since it officially began on 31 December 1922.

Note also that though I've kept Germany 1945 (COW code 255, per the table above, since it ends in 1945 in the Gleditsch-Ward panel), there are observations for the (occupied) territory of both the later German Federal Republic and the later German Democratic Republic in 1945.

References

D. Pemstein, S. Meserve, and J. Melton. "Democratic Compromise: A Latent Variable Analysis of Ten Measures of Regime Type". In: Political Analysis 18.4 (2010), pp. 426-449. DOI: 10.1093/pan/mpq020.

D. Pemstein, S. A. Meserve, and J. Melton. Replication Data for: Democratic Compromise: A Latent Variable Analysis of Ten Measures of Regime Type. 2013. DOI: 10.7910/DVN/WWYOHU.

Examples

# You can select only some datasets

democracy_data_gwf <- generate_democracy_scores_dataset(
 datasets = c("gwf", "pacl", "bmr"), 
 output_format = "wide"
 )
#> Adding BMR data
#> Adding GWF data
#> Adding PACL/DD data

# all PMM datasets
democracy_data_pmm <- generate_democracy_scores_dataset(
  selection = "pmm", exclude_pmm_duplicates = FALSE
 )
#> Adding arat_pmm data
#> Adding blm_pmm data
#> Adding bollen_pmm data
#> Adding fh_pmm data
#> Adding hadenius_pmm data
#> Adding mainwaring_pmm data
#> Adding Munck data
#> Adding pacl_pmm data
#> Adding polity_pmm data
#> Adding polyarchy_pmm data
#> Adding prc_pmm data
#> Adding vanhanen_pmm data

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# This produces scaled scores
generate_democracy_scores_dataset(
 keep_only_last_in_year = FALSE,
 scale_scores = TRUE)

# These require downloads:

democracy_data_long <- generate_democracy_scores_dataset(
 datasets = "pacl",
 force_redownload = TRUE
) 

democracy_data_wide <- generate_democracy_scores_dataset(
 datasets = "pacl",
 force_redownload = TRUE, 
 output_format = "wide"
) 
} # }