Country-year panel of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute's high-level democracy indices v16 (2026 release): electoral, liberal, egalitarian, deliberative and participatory democracy plus rule of law, political corruption and freedom of expression, 1789-2025, ~220 political systems, all on a 0-1 scale. The academic gold standard for democracy measurement — expert-coded with two centuries of history. Raw data: V-Dem Institute, v16 (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Our World in Data.

Source: V-Dem democracy indices
Rows: 35,344
Columns: 14
Source cadence: Yearly
Last refreshed: Oct 4, 2026
Theme: government

Column	Type	Description
entity	string	V-Dem political system / country name as published (includes historical polities such as Piedmont-Sardinia and separately coded territories such as Palestine/Gaza and Palestine/West Bank, plus OWID population-weighted regional aggregates).
country_code	string	ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code where the entity maps to one; null for historical polities and regional aggregates.
year	integer	Observation year (V-Dem v16 country-year; some entities coded back to 1789). (unit: year)
world_region	string	OWID world-region assignment for the entity ('World region according to OWID').
electoral_democracy_index	float	V-Dem electoral democracy index (vdem_polyarchy): the core electoral-democracy measure, 0-1 (higher = more democratic). (unit: index)
liberal_democracy_index	float	V-Dem liberal democracy index (vdem_libdem): electoral democracy plus liberal safeguards (rule of law, civil liberties), 0-1. (unit: index)
egalitarian_democracy_index	float	V-Dem egalitarian democracy index (vdem_egaldem): equal protection of rights and equal access to power across social groups, 0-1. (unit: index)
deliberative_democracy_index	float	V-Dem deliberative democracy index (vdem_delidem): reasoned justification and respectful, inclusive public deliberation, 0-1. (unit: index)
participatory_democracy_index	float	V-Dem participatory democracy index (vdem_partipdem): active citizen participation beyond elections (civil society, direct democracy), 0-1. (unit: index)
rule_of_law_index	float	V-Dem rule of law index (vdem_rule): transparent, predictable enforcement and judicial independence, 0-1. (unit: index)
political_corruption_index	float	V-Dem political corruption index (vdem_corr): pervasiveness of political corruption, 0-1 (higher = more corrupt). (unit: index)
freedom_of_expression_index	float	V-Dem freedom of expression index (vdem_freexp): media censorship, harassment of journalists and freedom of discussion, 0-1. (unit: index)
fetch_date	string	Date this snapshot was fetched (ISO date). (unit: date)
row_hash	string	Deterministic 12-hex row identity hash (entity\|year).

First 10 sample rows — a preview, not the complete dataset.

entity	country_code	year	world_region	electoral_democracy_index	liberal_democracy_index	egalitarian_democracy_index	deliberative_democracy_index	participatory_democracy_index	rule_of_law_index	political_corruption_index	freedom_of_expression_index	fetch_date	row_hash
Afghanistan	AFG	1,789	Asia	0.019	0.029	—	—	0.018	0.402	0.418	0.086	2026-10-04	ef27e53154de
Argentina	ARG	1,789	South America	0.082	0.066	—	—	0.02	0.499	0.324	0.257	2026-10-04	c430fa883e35
Asia (population-weighted)	—	1,789	—	0.037	0.032	—	—	0.016	0.176	—	0.139	2026-10-04	14620205c537
Australia	AUS	1,789	Oceania	0.117	0.087	—	—	0.028	0.777	0.064	0.305	2026-10-04	7014c381e07b
Austria	AUT	1,789	Europe	0.042	0.05	—	—	—	0.7	0.058	0.266	2026-10-04	e62ef39124a7
Baden	OWID_BAD	1,789	—	—	—	—	—	—	0.539	0.262	0.186	2026-10-04	eafc1d9b67d8
Bangladesh	BGD	1,789	Asia	0.053	0.069	—	—	0.024	0.355	—	0.156	2026-10-04	57cb3e4ca093
Bavaria	OWID_BAV	1,789	—	0.037	—	—	—	0.016	0.243	0.767	0.151	2026-10-04	d1b73cbbe828
Belgium	BEL	1,789	Europe	0.047	0.101	—	—	0.032	0.795	0.095	0.287	2026-10-04	3e70bf2c81b8
Bosnia and Herzegovina	BIH	1,789	Europe	0.02	0.03	—	—	0.018	0.226	—	0.08	2026-10-04	f92019d6b45c

Oct 4, 2026Current
20261004T081617Z-4580f2ac03e8 · sha256 4580f2ac03e8…
35,344 rows · first snapshot

Point any LLM at the metadata endpoint — the documentation above is machine-readable too (JSON-LD + Croissant).

cURL

curl "https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/vdem_democracy_intel/vdem_democracy_indices_annual" | jq '{title, rows, columns_count, license}'

Python

import requests

ds = requests.get("https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/vdem_democracy_intel/vdem_democracy_indices_annual").json()
print(ds["title"], ds["rows"], "rows")

# Sample rows for an LLM context window
for row in ds.get("sample_rows", [])[:5]:
    print(row)

API endpoint: https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/vdem_democracy_intel/vdem_democracy_indices_annual

Tip: fetch /llms.txt for the full machine-readable catalog.

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APA

V-Dem democracy indices. (2026). V-Dem democracy indices, annual [Data set, snapshot 20261004T081617Z-4580f2ac03e8, sha256 4580f2ac03e8]. Datazimuts. Retrieved 2026-10-05, from https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/vdem_democracy_intel/vdem_democracy_indices_annual?snapshot=20261004T081617Z-4580f2ac03e8

BibTeX

@misc{dz_vdem_democracy_intel_vdem_democracy_indi_4580f2ac,
  title        = {{V-Dem democracy indices, annual}},
  author       = {{V-Dem democracy indices}},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Datazimuts},
  howpublished = {\url{https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/vdem_democracy_intel/vdem_democracy_indices_annual?snapshot=20261004T081617Z-4580f2ac03e8}},
  note         = {Snapshot 20261004T081617Z-4580f2ac03e8, sha256 4580f2ac03e83b5bc9cccdb3e088c5118b8d06fe3f67de36bed7f5e59c5d4b1a; accessed 2026-10-05}
}

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