Overview
The Democratic Erosion Consortium (DEC) sits at the intersection of political science, data journalism, and civic education. In a recent Q&A hosted on Mike Albertus’s Substack, The Good Society, the DEC co-directors and the Research Director reflect on the core questions driving their work: how to measure democracy, how to teach it effectively, and how to identify democratic threats in the United States and around the world. The interview also highlights the latest updates to the Democratic Erosion Event Dataset (DEED) and previews a new US-focused version of the dataset, aimed at informing policymakers, scholars, and the public about democratic dynamics in a contemporary context.
What DEC Is Trying to Understand
At its core, the DEC seeks to operationalize debates about democracy into measurable events and observable indicators. The interview emphasizes three overarching aims:
– Clarifying what counts as democratic erosion versus natural political change.
– Providing educators and students with reliable metrics to teach about democracy and its fragility.
– Offering timely data to monitor and respond to democratic threats, from electoral manipulation to legal-political power shifts.
Measuring Democracy: From Concepts to Data
The DEC team underscores that democracy is best understood as a set of practices and processes—free and fair elections, independent judiciaries, civil liberties, and accountable institutions—rather than a static condition. Translating these ideas into data requires careful definition, transparent methodology, and ongoing validation. The conversation on The Good Society highlights how DEED collects event-level information about actions and incidents that affect democratic processes, such as elections-related irregularities, legislative maneuvers that concentrate power, or civil society pressures that shape policy outcomes. The goal is to build a dataset that is both rigorous and adaptable to new forms of democratic contests as they emerge globally.
DEED: The Democratic Erosion Event Dataset Update
The interview details the recent update to DEED, a living resource designed to track episodes of democratic erosion across time and space. Updates typically include new event codings, refined definitions, and improved coding protocols to ensure consistency across researchers and projects. The DEC team explains how these updates enhance researchers’ ability to compare erosion events across countries and time periods, while also supporting educators who want to illustrate how democratic backsliding unfolds in practice.
What’s New in the US-Focused DEED Version
A major portion of the discussion centers on the DEC’s plan to assemble a US-focused version of DEED. This initiative aims to map U.S. democratic events with the same attention to context, causality, and consequences as the international dataset. By focusing on the United States, the DEC intends to provide a high-resolution view of democratic health, including the interplay between federal structures, state policies, electoral administration, and civil society responses. The goal is not to sensationalize but to equip researchers, journalists, educators, and policymakers with nuanced insights into how erosion can occur in a mature democracy and what indicators might serve as early warnings.
Teaching Democracy in a Time of Erosion
A recurring theme in the Q&A is education. The DEC argues that understanding democracy requires both critical inquiry and accessible teaching materials. The researchers discuss curricular uses for DEED, such as class projects that track events, compare cases, and examine the role of institutions in safeguarding or compromising democratic norms. By providing a transparent data pipeline and clear definitions, DEED becomes a practical tool for classrooms, think tanks, and public discussions, helping students and readers discern between rhetoric and reliable trends in democratic health.
Global Perspectives and Local Realities
The DEC’s work is inherently global, but the interview stresses that local contexts matter deeply. Democratic erosion often unfolds differently in different political environments, influenced by constitutional design, media ecosystems, societal polarization, and international pressures. The DEC invites scholars to use DEED and its US-focused counterpart to compare patterns, test theories of democratic resilience, and identify protective factors that sustain open, accountable governance.
Looking Ahead
As the DEC continues refining its methods and expanding its datasets, the team remains committed to producing credible, teachable resources that illuminate the dynamics of democracy. The Q&A signals a broader trajectory: better measures, clearer teaching tools, and timely data that help society recognize both the warning signs of erosion and the conditions that support democratic renewal.
Read the full Substack post for the complete discussion and methodological notes. The DEC welcomes feedback from researchers, educators, and policymakers who are interested in advancing rigorous, accessible understandings of democratic health.
