Update of the Democracy and Dictatorship Dataset by Bjørnskov and Rode

Source: R/data_documentation.R

This dataset updates pacl with more countries and coverage from 1950 to 2020, as described in C. Bjørnskov and M. Rode. "Regime types and regime change: A new dataset on democracy, coups, and political institutions". In: The Review of International Organizations 15.2 (2020), pp. 531-551. DOI: 10.1007/s11558-019-09345-1. The full data and codebook can be downloaded here: http://www.christianbjoernskov.com/bjoernskovrodedata/. The documentation below is directly copied from the codebook.

pacl_update

Format

An object of class tbl_df (inherits from tbl, data.frame) with 14768 rows and 46 columns.

Source

C. Bjørnskov and M. Rode. "Regime types and regime change: A new dataset on democracy, coups, and political institutions". In: The Review of International Organizations 15.2 (2020), pp. 531-551. DOI: 10.1007/s11558-019-09345-1. The full data and codebook can be downloaded here http://www.christianbjoernskov.com/bjoernskovrodedata/

Details

pacl_update_country

Country name in the original dataset.

pacl_update_country_isocode

Three letter ISO country code.

year

Year.

DD_regime

Numeric regime category, following Cheibub, Ghandi and Vreeland (2010) (Parliamentary democracies = 0, Mixed democracies (with weak presidents) = 1, Presidential democracies = 2, Civilian autocracies = 3, Military dictatorships = 4, and Royal dictatorships = 5)

DD_category

Regime category label, following Cheibub, Ghandi and Vreeland (2010) (Parliamentary democracies = 0, Mixed democracies (with weak presidents) = 1, Presidential democracies = 2, Civilian autocracies = 3, Military dictatorships = 4, and Royal dictatorships = 5)

Monarchy

Is the country a hereditary monarchy? (Monarchy = 1, Republic = 0)

Commonwealth

Is the country a member of the British Commonwealth? (Commonwealth = 1, Other = 0)

Monarch_name

Name of the monarch.

Monarch_accession

Year of accession of the monarch.

Monarch_birthyear

Year of birth of the monarch.

Female_monarch

Is the monarch female? (No=0, Yes=1)

Democracy

Is the country democratic or not? following Cheibub, Ghandi and Vreeland (2010) (Democracy = 1, Autocracy = 0) Dichotomous indicator of democracy based on a minimalist definition. A country is defined as democratic, if elections were conducted, these were free and fair, and if there was a peaceful turnover of legislative and executive offices following those elections.

Presidential

Is the political system presidential? (No=0, Yes=1)

President_name

Name of the president.

President_accesion

Accession year of the president.

President_birthyear

Year of birth of the president.

Interim_phase

Is the president interim / preliminary? (more than 2 Presidents/year=1, Otherwise=0)

Female_president

Is the president female? (No=0, Yes=1)

Colony

Is the country a colony? (No=0, Yes=1)

Colony_of

If colony, which country is the colonial power? Country name of the colonial power.

Colony_administrated_by

If colony, which country is the colonial administrator?

Communist

Is the country's regime communist / socialist? (No=0, Yes=1)

Regime_change_lag

Regime Change lag (No=0, Yes=1) If a coded event, such as a change in the Presidency, took place after 01.07 it is assigned to the following calendar year in the data. In this case, the lag variable will be equal to one. For all change events before that date, the lag dummy is equal to zero.

spatial_democracy

Average of geographical neighbors' Democracy score

countrycode

Numeric country ID. Undocumented in original codebook.

No_of_chambers_in_parliament

Total number of chambers in parliament.

proportional_voting

Is the electoral system characterized by including proportional representation? (No=0, Yes=1)

Election_system

Electoral system. Can be FPTP, List PR (large multi-member), List PR, Parallel SMD/PR, List PR (small multi-member), PR, Mixed member SMD/PR, FPTP and appointed, List PR(small multi-member), Some form of FPTP, SNTV, National list, STV, Single-member constituency, Party list PR, Bloc voting, Multiple vote, FPTP and bloc voting, FPTP and Hare quota, Hagenbasch-Bischoff, Appointed, List PR(large multi-member), IRV, Multi-seat PR, Plurality-at-large / d'Hondt, d'Hondt and Saint algue, List PR (small multi-party), Mix, Some form of PR, Proportional representation, Multi-member constituencies, Block Vote, Mix of appointment and local election, d'Hondt, FPTP / PR, Borda count, Single-member plurality, FPTP and reserved, PR / Sainte-Laguë, Mixed member majoritarian, Two-round FPTP, Endorsement, Most multi-seat constituencies by simple majority vote, PR and nomination, Two round single-member constituencies, Ethnic FPTP, FPTP / Bloc voting, FPTP / Party list, Half single constituency, half PR, Indirectly elected by the provincial people's congresses, Multi- and single-seat constituency, Closed-list proportional representation, Lists, FPTP, party list multi member constituency, Two round absolute majority, All appointed, Closed list PR, Single list, Appointed by Basic Peoples Congresses, Mix PR and functional constituencies, MMP / FPTP, FPTP in two colleges, PR and appointed, Multiple non-transferable vote system, Single-member constituencies majority, One constituency, d'Hondt, Partially-open list proportional representation, majority bonus, Party list and FPTP, PR and Droop quota, PR Hare quota, FPTP and proportional, Simple majority constituency, Closed list proportional representation, List PR and appointment, Simple majority, one constituency, Sainte-Laguë, Single constituency, Party-list proportional representation, Party list, Two-round, Elected and single-member constituency, FPTP / appointed, Mixed Member SDM/PR, Party list majority, PR / FPTP, Single-seat constituencies, FPTP and reserved seats, Indirect through eight regional colleges, Largest remainder, Party list proportional representation, Two round single seat constituency, Appointed by clans, Open party-list proportional representation, Plurality party-list system, Elected by people's district assemblies, FPTP and nomination, Mixed, Most appointed, FPTP and party list, Most in open list multi member constituencies, Multi-seat constituency majority, Mainly appointed, Nominated by parties, FPTP after some appointed, Mixed PR / FPTP, Single seat constituency, Elected by provincial assemblies, FPTP and d'Hondt, Mixed appointment and unknown, FPTP and appointment, Single-seat constituency, Som form of FPTP, Elected by colleges, Half elected by local councils and half by corporations, Majority party list, Panchayat system, PR and FPTP, Seven-stage process, FPTP and PR, FPTP within two colleges, Appointed by governor, FPTP, multi member constituency, Multi-seat constituency, Party nominees, Mix nominated and unknown, Mixed member SMD/PR with large bonus, Single list of candidates, Parallel SMP/PR, Party Block vote, Single constituency majority, Unknown, FPTP and nominated, Limited Vote, Mixed-member SMD/PR, Multi-member constituencies. Single Transferable Vote, PR in 15 of 26 constituencies; Bloc voting, Two-round single-member constituency, 346 elected by municipal citizens, 181 chosen by 'social sectors', Election in two colleges, Party-list proportional representation., Single electoral college, SNTV and appointed, ?, Coopted, List P (large multi-member), Selected by committee, Single district.

No_of_members_in_lower_house

If bicameral parliament, total number of members in lower house.

No_of_members_in_upper_house

If bicameral parliament, total number of members in upper house.

No_of_members_in_third_house

If tricameral parliament, total number of members in third house.

New_constitution

Whether a new constitution was implemented (No=0, Yes=1)

fullsuffrage

Whether electoral system attributes full suffrage. (No=0, Yes=1)

Suffrage_restriction

If no full suffrage, kind of suffrage restriction

electoral

Alternative democracy indicator capturing degree of multi-party competition (No elections=0, Single-party elections=1, non-democratic multi-party elections=2, democratic elections= 3)

spatial_electoral

Average of geographical neighbors' electoral.

alternation

Whether there's an alternation in power after election. Undocumented in original codebook.

multiparty

Whether the elections are multiparty. Undocumented in original codebook.

free_and_fair_election

Whether the elections are free and fair. Undocumented in original codebook.

parliamentary_election_year

Year of parliamentary election. Undocumented in original codebook.

election_month_year

Month and year of parliamentary election. Undocumented in original codebook.

postponed_election

Whether the election was postponed. Undocumented in original codebook.

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.