Democratic Erosion Event Dataset (DEED)

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Overview

What is the Democratic Erosion Event Dataset?

The Democratic Erosion Event Dataset (DEED) records discrete events related to democratic erosion and autocratic consolidation across countries and over time. The current version (v7) of DEED includes 22,507 events in 152 countries between 2000 and 2023. We track 4 different types of events: precursors to erosion; symptoms of erosion; resistance to erosion; and destabilizing events. Users can track trends over time in individual countries or across countries.

ACCESS

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Interactive Data Visualizations

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Visualizations

INNOVATION

Why Events Data?

By capturing the concrete events associated with both the onset of democratic erosion and resistance to it, our dataset complements other measures of democratic quality by showing how processes of backsliding occur, not just whether they are occurring.

Comprehensive Set of Events

DEED tracks a comprehensive set of event types, offering a fuller picture of how backsliding and resistance to it occur across a broad range of government institutions, non-governmental actors, and contexts and settings.

Event Sequencing

By tracking all erosion-related events in a single country over time, DEED can answer important questions about the sequencing of processes of backsliding and resistance.

Want to learn more about DEED and other ways to measure democratic backsliding?

Download our Democratic Erosion Evidence Brief (DEE-Brief): A Guide to Measuring Democratic Erosion.

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Methodology

Methodology

Learn more about how we construct the dataset, read about our framework for categorizing erosion-related events, and access the DEED codebook.
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Have questions or suggestions about the DEED Dataset?

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DEED Dataset FAQ

What is the most recent version of the dataset?

DEED v7, which includes 22,507 events related to democratic erosion and autocratic consolidation across 152 countries. We generally publish a new DEED version every year. You can sign up to our listserve to receive updates about DEED.

How much coverage does the DEED currently have?

DEED v7 includes 22,507 events related to democratic erosion and autocratic consolidation across 152 countries from 2000 to 2023. Subsequent updates to the data will include additional countries, as well as code more recent years.  

How are events coded?

Our events are hand-coded by trained coders who transform qualitative descriptions of democratic erosion processes into discrete event types according to our analytic framework.

Events are identified from both student-written case studies as part of the Democratic Erosion university course and annual Freedom House country reports from 2000 onward (starting with v7).

Can I access the full dataset?

Yes! You can download the v7 dataset in .csv format by filling out the form here. You can also view the dataset on our data viewer and explore our data visualizations (note these are based on v6 and will be updated to use v7 data shortly).

How should I cite the dataset if I use it?

You can cite v7 of the dataset as follows:

Gottlieb, Jessica, Rodrigo Balvanera, Hannah Baron, Robert A. Blair, Laura Paler, and Julie Anne Weaver. 2025. “Democratic Erosion Event Dataset v7.” Democratic Erosion Consortium: A Cross-University Collaboration.

What is the history of the DEED dataset?

DEED was created in 2018 as an inductive exercise by a DEC capstone class led by Prof. Jessica Gottlieb to develop an analytical framework for classifying democratic erosion events in partnership with USAID. You can access the capstone reports from 2018, 2019, and 2020.

Then, students enrolled in the Democratic Erosion Course completed case study assignments documenting democratic erosion in a country of interest, which were then hand-coded into discrete events to build out the DEED.

Our Student Fellowship Program has been instrumental in continuing to code events, build the dataset, study it and make improvements.

Going forward, we have included other data sources, including the narratives of the Annual Freedom House country reports.

How can I make a suggestion or give feedback on the dataset?

You can fill out our comment form here. We welcome any and all feedback and suggestions.