Numerous studies have reported that countries tend to become more similar to their immediate geographic neighbors with respect to democracy. We show that a similar process of mutual adjustment can be found within very different international networks: geographically dispersed colonial empires,...

In Chapter 2 of this volume, Rothstein and Teorell elaborate on impartiality as the inherent meaning of quality of government. Their compelling argument extends that in Rothstein and Teorell (2008) and Teorell (2009) where the core conceptual meaning (Sartori 1984; Adcock and Collier 2001) of...

The recent surge in popularity of ‘accountability’ in public administration and international development seems in part divorced from centuries of conceptual and empirical work done in related disciplines of finance and accounting, and in political science. This article brings together the...

The importance of political institutions for economic growth and social well-being has been demonstrated in a number of studies. Societies in which agents trust that other agents will collaborate in establishing and maintaining efficient institutions produce more social benefits. Yet there is...

What makes African voters “up for grabs”? Existing approaches to the swing voter have several liabilities. This article introduces a new measure enabling a more comprehensive assessment of swing voting, including the differentiation between clientelistic and collective goods motivations. The...

What makes opposition parties win elections in sub-Saharan Africa? The literature on voters in Africa tells us that ballots are won over by clientelism rather than by economic development, thus undermining the quality of collective goods provision and democratic accountability. We challenge this...

A vast literature suggests that voters in new democracies “sell” their vote to patrons providing private or small-scale club goods, or alternatively, that such goods are distributed along ethnic lines to reinforce ethnic voting. In either case the outcome is undermining democratic...

With Version 6, we are releasing new data for 113 countries covering 2013 and 2014, and for 76 of these countries data is also available for 2015 – in addition to the full data for all 173 countries from 1900-2012. The dataset now includes about 350 unique and disaggregated democracy...

For policymakers, activists, academics, and citizens around the world the conceptualization and measurement of democracy matters. The needs of democracy promoters and social scientists are convergent. We all need better ways to measure democracy. In the first section of this document we...

This study argues that strong parties play a critical role in fostering economic development. The theory explores how parties broaden the constituencies to which policy makers respond and help politicians to solve coordination problems. These features ensure that politicians engage in better...