Official ideology

Official ideology of the government

The kind of ideology the government uses to justify its rule, as V-Dem's experts code it. A kind is named only where the government relies on it "to a large extent" or more, and most experts agree which kind it is. Otherwise the label is "mixed or unclear", or "no strong official ideology" where the government relies on one little or not at all, as most democracies do. "Socialist or communist" in 2023 covers China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea, and governments such as Venezuela's, Nicaragua's, Bolivia's and Colombia's. V-Dem's coding runs to 2023.

What differs between the groups

The “between groups” figure runs from 0 (the groups are no different) to 1 (the groups explain all the differences between countries). Groups have no up or down, so this says how much the groups differ, never which way. For that, read the group averages. The figure also tends to rise when there are more groups. So to judge whether it could be chance (q), we shuffle the same labels among the same countries many times and see how often a figure this big turns up. Then we allow for the fact that many measures are checked at once, since with enough checks a few big figures turn up by luck alone. Groups with fewer than 12 countries are left out. And countries that share a label share a lot else. Adjusting for income rules out one third factor, but leaves language, region, legal tradition and history untouched.

The income rows are shown wherever they rank. Whether the groups differ in income is the question people most often bring to this table. They have no adjusted figure, since income cannot be adjusted for itself.

The groups, and who is in them

Largest first. A pair page shows the link within a group only if the group has at least twelve countries. So the smaller groups here appear on no pair page at all.

Source

All indicators · How the country data works