Democracy and dictatorship revisited

Abstract

We address the strengths and weaknesses of the main available measures of political regime and extend the dichotomous regime classification first introduced in Alvarez et al. (Stud. Comp. Int. Dev. 31(2):3-36 1996). This extension focuses on how incumbents are removed from office. We argue that differences across regime measures must be taken seriously and that they should be evaluated in terms of whether they (1) serve to address important research questions, (2) can be interpreted meaningfully, and (3) are reproducible. We argue that existing measures of democracy are not interchangeable and that the choice of measure should be guided by its theoretical and empirical underpinnings. We show that the choice of regime measure matters by replicating studies published in leading journals

International Institutions and Domestic Politics: Can Preferential Trading Agreements Help Leaders Promote Economic Reform?

“…By democratization, we refer to the recent enactment of political institutions that induce competition for office (Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland 2010). Empirically, a country is said to be democratizing if it has introduced competitive elections within the last five years.…”

“…For democratization, we use the relatively stringent Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland (2010) coding that distinguishes between autocracies and democracies. Democratization occurs in year t if the country allowed competitive elections between years t -5 and t. 23 As alternate measures, we use a positive change of at least 3 points in a country's Polity IV score and a change of more than 1 point in the Freedom House measure of democracy (combined political and civil rights).…”

“…These data are from the Correlates of War. Second, democracy is a dummy variable that scores 1 if a developing country i is a democracy at time t-1, as measured in Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland (2010). Previous research has shown that democratic pairs of countries sign PTAs more frequently than autocratic or mixed pairs (Mansfield, Milner, and Rosendorff 2002).…”

Democracy by Demand? Reinvestigating the Effect of Self-expression Values on Political Regime Type

“…In contrast, Venezuela experienced a small increase in SEI leading up to 97 Boogards 2012. 98 Cheibub, Gandhi and Vreeland 2010. Hugo Chavez' consolidation of presidential power, but still experienced reversed democratization under Chavez with the curtailing of civil liberties and electoral manipulation.…”

Small and beautiful? The Programme of Activities and the least developed countries

“…To account for institutional factors, another model contains a binary indicator for democracy, measured as the existence of free and competitive elections (Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland, 2010). Since CDM projects and PoAs may promote sustainable development, democratic rulers, whose political survival depends on supplying public goods (Lake and Baum, 2001), may have stronger incentives to support such projects through conducive regulations and policies.…”