The dashboard relies on data from the Varieties of Democracy project (https://v-dem.net/). It uses the 2025 version and charts the temporal trends of democracy and several related phenomena for 1946-2024. It supports an inquiry into the impact of political institutions on democracy, specifically asking whether the electoral system (majoritarian versus proportional representation) has a role in helping autocratizers to maintain power. A conference paper prepared for the Midwest Political Science Association’s 83^rd Annual Conference (Chicago, April 23-26, 2026) presents the findings about the multiple ways in which majoritarian institutions and the (lack of) vertical division of power may enable autocratizers. A first draft of the paper is available here. Please do not quote it yet. However, the paper explains the changes to the V-Dem data we implemented, such as importing a country*year version of the electoral system variable from the Quality of Democracy project (https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data), and further, imputing and standardizing the abbreviated dataset.

How to use the dashboard: The Power BI report consists of eight pages, which can be navigated through the little arrows under the dashboard visuals. The pages contain one or more graphic visuals and some slicers (filters). The slicers allow for multiple selections with Ctrl +click, and may be reset by clicking on the little eraser in their right top corner. In all visuals, additional information can be seen by hovering the cursor over datapoints or graphic elements. The whole dashboard can be magnified to full page-size by clicking the diagonal arrow in the bottom right corner.