Promises and Pitfalls of Classifications of Political Regimes

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

For a long time primarily Polity and Freedom House were used in studies to classify political regimes, in the last 25 years the political science research community has produced a whole range of comprehensive datasets to classify political regimes as a whole or autocratic regimes in particular. In contrast to the widespread discussion about common standards for measuring democracies, however, there has been little common debate about what standards must be met when developing datasets for political regimes. The roundtable aims to initiate precisely this discussion.

Sub Unit

• Division 44: Democracy and Autocracy

Chair

• Steffen Kailitz Hannah Arendt Institute

Presenters

• Barbara Geddes University of California, Los Angeles

• Staffan I. Lindberg V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg

• Beatriz Magaloni Stanford University

• Jose Antonio Cheibub University of Pittsburgh

• Jan Teorell Stockholm University