2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Transitions within Democracy: Institutions, Interests, and Accountability
| Project/Area Number |
20K01457
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Waseda University |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
Kellam Marisa.A 早稲田大学, 政治経済学術院, 准教授 (30711866)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2025-03-31
|
| Keywords | Comparative Politics / Democracy / Democratic Backsliding / Populism / Political Institutions |
|---|
| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
During FY 2021, I focused on building a global dataset of democratic governments, together with my research collaborator, Antonio Bensaglio Berlucchi, a Ph.D. student at the Graduate School of Political Science at Waseda University. The dataset includes over 800 executives who were democratically elected or came to power through democratic processes. The dataset also records legislative terms and the majority status of the governing party or coalition. Using the publicly available data from the V-Dem Project, the dataset calculates several different measures of democratic backsliding. It also incorporates various indicators of the populist orientation of leaders. At the country-year level, it includes information on the historical democratic experience, the economy, etc.
Once this dataset was completed, we analyzed the data to determine the amount of democratic backsliding that can be attributed to different factors: populism, presidential systems, and dominant executives with supermajorities. we employed nearest neighbor matching methods to support causal inference. This analysis is essential for understanding global trends in democracies, and for putting the subsequent steps of the project on democratic change into the relevant context.
|
| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
Although the coronavirus pandemic forced a change of focus, limiting the ability to do fieldwork overseas, the research is otherwise proceeding as planned.
|
| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
My co-author and I have already written a conference paper based on the analysis described above and presented this paper at the Midwest Political Science Association annual conference in April 2022. We will revise the paper and submit it for peer review to the journal Democratization.
Next, I will turn to the detailed typology of within democracy regime types, beginning with the region of Latin America. I expect to have a draft paper completed by the end of FY 2022.
|
| Causes of Carryover |
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, some of my research plans changed. I will use the remaining funds for hiring a research assistant and for research materials.
|
