Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a new approach to conceptualization and measurement of democracy. The headquarters-the V-Dem Institute-is based at the University of Gothenburg with 17 sta↵. The project includes a worldwide team with six Principal Investigators, 14 Project Managers, 30 Regional Managers, 170 Country Coordinators, Research Assistants, and 3,000 Country Experts. The V-Dem project is one of the largest ever social science research-oriented data collection programs.Please address comments and/or queries for information to: V-Dem Institute AbstractWe present a new dataset comprising more than 1900 regimes in 197 polities over the time period 1789-2016. We use this dataset to describe different historical patterns of regime duration globally, leveraging fine-grained measures on when regimes started and ended and a nuanced scheme of different modes of regime breakdown. To mention a few patterns, we display how the frequency of regime breakdown, and particular modes of breakdown, have followed cyclical rather than linear patterns across modern history and that the most common modes, overall, are coups d'état and incumbent-guided transformations of regimes. Further, we evaluate whether selected economic and political-institutional features are systematically associated with breakdown. We find robust evidence that low income levels, slow or negative economic growth, and having intermediate levels of democracy predict higher chances of regime breakdown, although these factors are more clearly related to regime breakdown during some periods of modern history than others. When disaggregating different models of breakdown, we find notable differences for these predictors, with low income levels, for example, being strongly related to regime breakdowns due to popular uprisings, whereas intermediate levels of democracy clearly predict regime breakdowns due to coups and incumbent-guided regime transitions.* We thank Haakon Jernsletten, Konstantinos Skenteris, Katharina Sibbers, Bernardo Isola, Ida Smedstad, Solveig Bjørkholt, and Sindre Haugen for excellent research assistance. We are grateful for valuable comments and inputs, at various stages in the process, from

We present a new dataset comprising more than 1900 regimes in 197 polities over the time period 1789-2016. We use this dataset to describe different historical patterns of regime duration globally, leveraging fine-grained measures on when regimes started and ended and a nuanced scheme of different modes of regime breakdown. To mention a few patterns, we display how the frequency of regime breakdown, and particular modes of breakdown, have followed cyclical rather than linear patterns across modern history and that the most common modes, overall, are coups d'état and incumbent-guided transformations of regimes. Further, we evaluate whether selected economic and political-institutional features are systematically associated with breakdown. We find robust evidence that low income levels, slow or negative economic growth, and having intermediate levels of democracy predict higher chances of regime breakdown, although these factors are more clearly related to regime breakdown during some periods of modern history than others. When disaggregating different models of breakdown, we find notable differences for these predictors, with low income levels, for example, being strongly related to regime breakdowns due to popular uprisings, whereas intermediate levels of democracy clearly predict regime breakdowns due to coups and incumbent-guided regime transitions.

We study how economic crises affect the likelihood of regime change brought about, in part or fully, by actors in the incumbent regime. While historically common, such processes remain far less studied than regime transitions forced by non-incumbent actors, such as coups or revolutions. We argue that economic crises may incentivize leaders to change the regime "from within" due to two different mechanisms, which we detail and illustrate with two cases. First, crises create "windows of opportunity" for leaders to change the regime in a direction they inherently prefer. Democratically elected leaders who use crises to conduct self-coups is one example. Second, economic crises sometimes allow for opposition actors to mobilize and threaten the regime with breakdown. In such circumstances, incumbents may prefer to change the regime from within to appease opponents in anticipation of even worse outcomes. We leverage new data on the timing and mode of regime change for more than 2000 regimes from about 200 countries, across 1789-2018, and find support for the hypothesis that economic crises induce transitions from within. However, when we distinguish incumbent-guided liberalization episodes from other guided transitions, including self-coups, we only find that economic crises systematically relate to the latter.

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We study how economic crises relate to the likelihood of experiencing regime changes ‘from within’; that is, transitions brought about, in part or fully, by actors in the incumbent regime. While historically common and influencing the political trajectories of many countries, such processes are far less studied than regime transitions forced by non-incumbent actors, such as coups or revolutions. We synthesize previous arguments and further specify how crises can incentivize leaders to change the regime from within due to two mechanisms. First, crises create windows of opportunity for leaders to pursue transitions they inherently prefer, for instance through self-coup. Second, crises sometimes allow opposition actors to mobilize and threaten the regime, forcing incumbents to liberalize. We leverage new data on timing and mode of regime change for more than 2000 regimes from about 200 countries, during the period 1789–2018. Employing different measurement strategies, estimators, control variables and other specification choices, we find fairly robust evidence that economic crises are related to transitions from within. However, when we distinguish between liberalizing and non-liberalizing guided transitions, we only find that economic crises systematically relate to the latter, suggesting that the window of opportunity mechanism may be especially pertinent in many contexts.