Why Democracies Develop and Decline

The Varieties of Democracy project (V-Dem) pioneered new ways to conceptualize and measure democracy, producing a multidimensional and disaggregated data set on democracy around the world that is now widely used by researchers, activists, and governments. Why Democracies Develop and Decline draws on this data to present a comprehensive overview and rigorous empirical tests of the factors that contribute to democratization and democratic decline, looking at economic, social, institutional, geographic, and international factors. It is the most authoritative and encompassing empirical analysis of the causes of democratization and reversals. The volume also proposes a comprehensive theoretical framework and presents an up-to-date description of global democratic developments from the French Revolution to the present. Each chapter leverages the specialized expertise of its authors, yet their sustained collaboration lends the book an unusually unified approach and a coherent theory and narrative.

1. Introduction Michael Coppedge, Amanda B. Edgell, Carl Henrik Knutsen and Staffan I. Lindberg; 2. The Ups and Downs of Democracy, 1789-2018 Carl Henrik Knutsen and Svend-Erik Skaaning; 3. Long-Run Factors John Gerring; 4. International Influence: The Hidden Dimension Michael Coppedge, Benjamin Denison, Paul Friesen, Lucía Tiscornia and Yang Xu; 5. Economic Determinants Carl Henrik Knutsen and Sirianne Dahlum; 6. Political Institutions and Democracy Allen Hicken, Samuel Baltz and Fabricio Vasselai; 7. Democracy and Social Forces Michael Bernhard and Amanda B. Edgell; 8. Causal Sequences in Long-Term Democratic Development and Decline Michael Coppedge, Amanda B. Edgell, Carl Henrik Knutsen and Staffan I. Lindberg.