Lexical Index of Electoral Democracy with Political Liberties

Updated to 2020, this dataset extends its coverage to include overseas colonies and introduces new variables for political liberties, electoral turnover, and modes of democratic transition and breakdown. It was created by Svend-Erik Skaaning and last updated in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyzing trends in political liberties using the dedicated variable for countries from 1789 to 2020.
• Studying patterns of democratic transition and breakdown through the specific modes variables included in version 6.0.
• Comparing electoral turnover rates across different political units, including overseas colonies.
• Assessing the evolution of electoral democracy using the core LIED and LIED+ indices over time.

Strengths

• Data coverage extends to the year 2020.
• Includes new political units such as overseas colonies.
• Introduces multiple new variables including political liberties and modes of democratic transition.

Limitations

• Unknown total number of country-year observations.
• Specific variable definitions and measurement methodologies are not detailed in the provided description.
• The sample may be limited to polities where historical data on electoral processes is available.

Provenance

Source

Svend-Erik Skaaning Dataverse.

Time Range

1789 to 2020.

Freshness

Last updated in April 2026.

Geography

Cross-national, including overseas colonies.