V-Dem in Action!

 

V-Dem Institute

@vdeminstitute

A unique approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. Dataset with 31 million data points, 202 countries, 480+ indicators, from 1789-2023.

The V-Dem Institute, led by Professor Staffan I. Lindberg, is an independent research institute and the Headquarters of the V-Dem project. The institute is based at the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

The V-Dem Project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a unique approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. We provide a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the simple presence of elections. The V-Dem project distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles.

 

Note: the V-Dem produces its rankings using among other things, the subjective opinion of anonymous supposed-experts.   But when asked, they claim they have a model that runs on a supercomputer.

Female Purple Sunbird

 

Female Cinnyris asiaticus

Indigo Bunting

 

Indigo Bunting

Loten's Sunbird

 

Loten's Sunbird

White-cheeked Small Green Barbet

 

Black-hooded Oriole

 

Black-hooded Oriole

The Way the Media Game is Played

There was a recent headline (I won't link it here), somethng like "Hedge Funds threaten to leave India over new regulations". Well, they may have threatened or not. That is not the point I'm raising here.

India recently issued new regulations adding certain reporting requirements on short-selling in market.  A little deeper look shows that the European Union had such rules since 2012, and the US just added such rules in October 2023.

A more fair and informative headline would be something like "India follows the US in regulations on short selling". 

But that is not the way the media game is played.