When Is Democracy? Cognitive Bias and Regime Characteristics

• In Event: Understanding Democracy Across Time and Place

Brief Overview

Cognitive biases shape perceptions of democracy in a country. Using Polity and V-Dem, we find fingerprints of coding bias. We conduct an experiment with the NELDA data, randomly assigning timing of coding. The results suggest significant bias.

Authors

• Susan Dayton Hyde, University of California-Berkeley

• Ryan P. Kennedy, University of Houston

• Nikolay Marinov