The Varieties of Political Regimes (VaPoReg) dataset

S. Kailitz. Varieties of Political Regimes (va-PoReg). Codebook. Version 1.7. Tech. rep. Dresden: Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Studies, 2024. The original data and codebook can be downloaded from <`r find_url("vaporeg", "documentation")>. The documentation below is derived from the codebook, with modifications.

Usage

vaporeg

Format

An object of class tbl_df (inherits from tbl, data.frame) with 29840 rows and 30 columns.

Source

S. Kailitz. Varieties of Political Regimes (va-PoReg). Dataset. Dresden, 2024.

S. Kailitz. Varieties of Political Regimes (va-PoReg). Codebook. Version 1.7. Tech. rep. Dresden: Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Studies, 2024.

Credits

The data were originally compiled by Steffen Kailitz and the Varieties of Political Regimes project. The dataset has been revised and expanded based on historical sources, country reports, and international political datasets.

Introduction

The VaPoReg dataset provides a classification of political regimes globally from 1900 to 2024. It covers independent states, colonial regimes, occupation regimes, and semi-sovereign entities such as protectorates. The dataset codes each country-year according to different regime typologies, integrating various sources of political regime data.

The dataset includes unique features such as:

Distinguishing between electoral and non-electoral autocracies.
Differentiating between constitutional monarchies, absolute monarchies, and personalist regimes.
Identifying colonial and occupation regimes separately from independent states.
Incorporating non-sovereign entities that have historically been excluded from other datasets.

Conceptual Framework

The dataset classifies regimes based on their institutional structure, political legitimation, and origin of rule. The classification emphasizes observable characteristics, such as whether a regime emerged from a coup, follows ideological principles, or relies on military governance.

Variables

country_name

The name of the country for a given year.

year

The calendar year.

vaporeg_code

The country code based on the Correlates of War (COW) dataset.

GeoNames_ID

Geographic identifier for linking with spatial datasets.

vaporeg_s

The standard classification of political regimes. Coded as:

10: Democracy
20: Semidemocracy
30: Electoral Oligarchy
40: Non-electoral Transitional Regime
50: Electoral Autocracy
60: Constitutional Monarchy
70: Absolute Monarchy
80: One-party Autocracy
90: Right-wing Autocracy
100: Communist Ideocracy
110: Islamist Ideocracy
120: Military Autocracy
130: Personalist Autocracy
140: Colonial Regime
150: Occupation Regime
160: No Central Authority

vaporeg_a

An alternative classification, which merges democracy and semidemocracy and groups monarchies together as ruling monarchies.

vaporeg_cr

A classification similar to VaPoReg_s, but includes an additional category for "Part of Other Country".

vaporeg_governing_country

For colonial and occupation regimes, this variable identifies the ruling country.

vaporeg_s_of_gc

The standard regime classification for the governing country.

vaporeg_a_of_gc

The alternative regime classification for the governing country.

vaporeg_s_start

The date on which the political regime type, as defined by the standard version of our political regime categorization, began.

vaporeg_s_end

The date on which the political regime type, as defined by the standard version of our political regime categorization, ended.

vaporeg_s_duration

The number of years the political regime has lasted, as defined by the standard version of our political regime categorization, counting only if the regime was still in power on July 1st of each year.

vaporeg_s_change

The variable identifies regime changes based on the standard version of our political regimecategorization. It takes a value of one if a different regime is in place on July 1st compared to July 1st of the previous year.

vaporeg_a_start

The date on which the political regime type, according to the alternative version of our political regime categorization, began.

vaporeg_a_end

The date on which the political regime type, according to the alternative version of our political regime categorization, ended.

vaporeg_a_duration

The number of years the political regime has lasted, as defined by the alternative version of our political regime categorization, counting only if the regime was still in power on July 1st ofeach year.

vaporeg_a_change

The variable identifies regime changes based on the standard version of our political regime categorization. It takes a value of one if a different regime is in place on July 1st compared to July 1st of the previous year.

vaporeg_binary_strict

A dichotomous classification of democracy, based on VaPoReg_s. Coded as 1 if VaPoReg_s is a Democracy (10), 0 otherwise.

vaporeg_binary_non-strict

A dichotomous classification of democracy, based on VaPoReg_s, but less strict. Coded as 1 if VaPoReg_s is a Democracy (10) or a Semidemocracy (20), 0 otherwise.

vaporeg_trichotomous

A trichotomous classification of democracy, based on VaPoReg_s. Coded as 2 if VaPoReg_s is a Democracy (10), 1 if it is a Semidemocracy (20), 0 otherwise.

Gapminder_pop

Population, per the Gapminder dataset.

gm_world_pop

World population, per the Gapminder dataset

un_region

UN region

un_cntinent

UN continent

Special Cases

Colonial Regimes: Defined by foreign rule, legal discrimination, and lack of sovereignty.
Occupation Regimes: Military-controlled administrations imposed by foreign powers.
No Central Authority: Cases where no governing entity holds effective control (e.g., Somalia post-1991).
Protectorates and Mandates: Semi-sovereign territories coded separately in some instances.

Sources

The dataset integrates multiple sources, including:

Freedom House
Polity IV
V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy Project)
LIED (Lexical Index of Electoral Democracy)
Historical country reports, election archives, and secondary literature

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.

References

Kailitz, Steffen. "Varieties of Political Regimes." Available at https://www.va-poreg.de/home.