Replication Data for: Hard to Count, Important to Measure: Assessing Democratic Backsliding

Assessing democracy is an important but difficult task. Freedom House has documented gradual but clear democratic backsliding globally for the last 17 years. The difference between our findings and that of Andrew Little and Anne Meng lies in the range of indicators that are used in the analyses. Freedom House’s assessments are based on both political rights and civil liberties and encompass more than electoral competition. Our data shows that deterioration in a range of civil liberties is the primary driver of democratic decline. This is important because, while competitive elections continue to be crucial markers of democracy, attacks on rights and freedoms that underpin them are harmful even when they fail to put or keep autocrats in power.