Democracy’s Advantages

This project on the tangible benefits of democracy is a response to two global trends: declining faith in democracy and authoritarian regimes’ destabilization of foreign democracies. To mitigate these problems, policymakers and practitioners need evidence of positive effects of democracy in areas including the economy, the environment, health, and security.

Studies have investigated a variety of outcomes in these areas but have not provided a cohesive framework about democracy’s relative advantages. To fill this gap, I am developing a theory to explain when democracies, or other regime types, are more successful at mitigating problems. I hypothesize that it is characteristics of solutions that affect regime types’ success at addressing problems, such as whether or not a solution limits rights or whether or not a solution eliminates threats to ruling elites’ economic gains. I am conducting global statistical analyses and case studies to develop the theory. I will produce a series of academic articles and a book. I will also offer advice to global practitioners and policymakers about how democracies can achieve better results, which is particularly important during this era when democracy is eroding.

The foundation of this research is an interdisciplinary project I have directed since 2019 at Case Western Reserve University, Democracy and Global Challenges. I lead a team of scholars from other disciplines including environmental science, epidemiology, and economics. We have examined democracy’s impact on specific outcomes in research and in a course for which I am the lead instructor, Economic, Environmental, and Health Challenges—The Impact of Democracy.

Amplifying Voices of Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (AVECCA) Task Force

In my newest project, colleagues and I ask, What misconceptions are common about the countries and peoples that were once part of the Soviet Union? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revealed some misconceptions, such as Ukraine as a “divided country”. The invasion has also reminded us of the importance of amplifying voices of those located in countries of the region other than Russia and in Russian cities other than Moscow and St. Petersburg so that we can be better informed. Identifying and correcting misconceptions is a critical step to expanding our understanding of and interaction with the region.

As a first step we are surveying scholars of the region to identify misconceptions, their sources, factors that have contributed to their persistence, and their impacts.  Our team will analyze this information and produce briefs and lead workshops to share this information with policymakers, development practitioners, journalists, and teachers, outside and, where possible, inside the region.  Our team will conduct research and produce studies about some of the misconceptions to provide more comprehensive information.  In some cases, we will do this work in collaboration with survey respondents to further amplify their voices and provide them with professional opportunities.

The task force includes scholars based in Armenia, Canada, Ukraine, the U.K., and the U.S.  The task force is part of PONARS, the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia, a global network of more than 140 scholars who aim to connect scholarship to policy.  I am co-leading the task force with Tomila Lankina and Mariya Omelicheva.

Extending Democratic Rights and Institutions:  Subnational Influences

There is a mismatch between accounts of democratization by historians and journalists and democratization theories. Histories and media reports demonstrate the importance of subnational activists, parties, and elections to establishing and consolidating democracy in countries. Yet, theories describe only national actors and institutions and aggregate country characteristics. To combat the global autocratization trend, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers need to have a more complete understanding of how to bring democracy about, help it spread, and enable it to endure.

To address this mismatch, I ask 1) how do subnational activists, parties, and elections fuel and shape decisions made by authoritarian leaders in the national capital to introduce democratic rights and institutions, and 2) how do democratic rights and institutions develop evenly throughout a country, overcoming pockets of subnational authoritarianism, once transition to democracy has been initiated in the national capital?

As part of this project, I have published two articles and a report for practitioners that lay the groundwork for investigating these questions (“Explaining Subnational Regime Variation,” “Measuring Subnational Democracy,” “The Problem of Subnational Unevenness in Democracy”) and a working paper that begins to examine the second question (“Democratic Consolidation”).

To date, I have analyzed Varieties of Democracy data and completed case studies from around the world using secondary literature. My next step is to conduct field research in multiple countries with a team of students and local scholars.

Varieties of Democracy: Subnational Government

I am the Project Manager for Subnational Government for Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). For V-Dem’s annual updates, I oversee research assistants’ collection of data for the subnational indicators, and I validate these and country expert-generated subnational data.

Earlier in the project, I designed the 22 subnational indicators, with input from other members of the team, and I worked with them to conceptualize democracy, develop other indicators, secure funding, create the data collection system, generate the dataset, establish the V-Dem Institute, and share output with policymakers and practitioners.