Research Programs

The Failing and Successful Sequences of Democratization (FASDEM) research program seeks to revolutionize our understanding of democratic transition by delineating and explaining both successful and failing episodes of democratization.

The Pandemic Backsliding Project assesses the extent to which governments are violating democratic standards for emergency provisions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Varieties of Autocracy and Autocratization (V-Aut) aims to contribute to a better understanding of (1) why and how political regimes move towards autocracy as well as (2) the institutions and stability of historical and contemporary autocracies.

The V-Forecast program is the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute’s forecasting intuitive. We offer two online forecasting tools: DemSpace and Predicting Adverse Regime Transitions (PART).

The Academic Freedom Index (AFi) project is a collaborative effort initially launched in 2019 between researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), the V-Dem Institute, the Scholars at Risk Network, and the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi).