About

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a unique approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. V-Dem distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles.

The V-Dem Institute is the executive management arm of V-Dem with responsibility for most aspects of the data collection efforts, management and coordination of several large research programs, and for most of the outreach, dissemination, and collaborations with policy/practitioners’ organizations.