# Install V-Dem data package:
# install.packages("devtools")
# devtools::install_github("vdeminstitute/vdemdata")
library(vdemdata)
library(tidyverse)
library(effects)
library(stringr)1 Introduction
This project is a practice of causal inference, aiming to complete the journey from correlation to causation in empirical social science research. The study investigates macro-political transformations—particularly regime changes—through a causal lens grounded in computational methods. The analysis relies on the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset, one of the most comprehensive global sources on political regimes and democratic institutions. Covering nearly every country from the 18th century to the present, V-Dem provides detailed yearly indicators across political, economic, and social dimensions, allowing for the historical tracking of institutional change.
In terms of motivation, this project was initiated in response to the comprehensive shocks (cultural, political, etc.) experienced by a Chinese international student upon arriving in the United States. Speaking broken English and surrounded by sarcastic remarks stemming from “banana discourse”, the experience prompted reflection on the root causes of the present situation and, more broadly, the structural contest between the social systems of China and the United States. The project seeks to find some kind of scientific conclusion through data and empirical research. Although such clarity is difficult to achieve in the social sciences, where mischievous atoms always lurk, the hope is to apply causal inference techniques to eliminate bias and pursue a theoretically grounded and relatively objective exploration.
The analysis is guided by four core research questions:
- RQ1: What kinds of factors cause a country to undergo a regime change?
- RQ2: What factors influence the establishment of communist regimes?
- RQ3: What factors contribute to the collapse of communist regimes?
- RQ4: What factors explain the long-term survival of the remaining communist regimes (China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam)?
These questions are explored through a combination of longitudinal data analysis and logistic modeling, with particular attention to causality and temporal ordering. Special emphasis is placed on the interplay between regime types and structural factors such as inequality, civil conflict, elite coordination, and education levels, in order to identify plausible causal pathways.
2 RQ1: What kinds of factors cause a country to undergo a regime change?
This section explores the historical predictors of regime change using V-Dem’s country-year panel data, covering over 200 years and nearly all sovereign states. We operationalize regime change based on transitions in the histname field and use logistic regression to assess whether various political, structural, and conflict-related variables can significantly predict the likelihood of a regime shift.
2.1 Import Data and Load Packages
2.2 Create Regime Change Variable
We define regime change as a change in the histname field within a country across years.
vdem_1 <- vdem |>
arrange(country_id, year) |>
group_by(country_id) |>
mutate(regime_change = if_else(histname != lag(histname), 1, 0, missing = 0)) |>
ungroup()
regime_transitions <- vdem_1 |>
arrange(country_id, year) |>
group_by(country_id) |>
mutate(
previous_histname = lag(histname),
current_histname = histname
) |>
filter(regime_change == 1) |>
select(country_id, country_name, year, previous_histname, current_histname) |>
ungroup()2.3 Naive Logit Model with Political Indicators
We first test a simple model using three high-level indices: - v2x_corr: Control of corruption - v2x_polyarchy: Electoral democracy index - v2x_freexp_altinf: Freedom of alternative sources of information
vdem_model <- vdem_1 |>
arrange(country_id, year) |>
group_by(country_id) |>
mutate(
v2x_corr_lag1 = lag(v2x_corr, 1),
v2x_polyarchy_lag1 = lag(v2x_polyarchy, 1),
v2x_freexp_altinf_lag1 = lag(v2x_freexp_altinf, 1)
) |>
ungroup()
model1 <- glm(regime_change ~ v2x_corr_lag1 + v2x_polyarchy_lag1 + v2x_freexp_altinf_lag1,
data = vdem_model,
family = binomial(link = "logit"))
summary(model1)
Call:
glm(formula = regime_change ~ v2x_corr_lag1 + v2x_polyarchy_lag1 +
v2x_freexp_altinf_lag1, family = binomial(link = "logit"),
data = vdem_model)
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
(Intercept) -3.1161 0.1056 -29.498 < 2e-16 ***
v2x_corr_lag1 -0.3008 0.1549 -1.943 0.0521 .
v2x_polyarchy_lag1 -2.2017 0.3724 -5.913 3.36e-09 ***
v2x_freexp_altinf_lag1 0.1186 0.2679 0.443 0.6580
---
Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
(Dispersion parameter for binomial family taken to be 1)
Null deviance: 6007.1 on 25879 degrees of freedom
Residual deviance: 5891.9 on 25876 degrees of freedom
(2033 observations deleted due to missingness)
AIC: 5899.9
Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 72.4 Structural and Background Factors Model
We expand the model to include structural and conflict variables: - e_gdppc: GDP per capita - e_peaveduc: Education level (15+) - e_civil_war: Civil war dummy - e_pt_coup: Number of coup attempts
vdem_model1 <- vdem_model |>
arrange(country_id, year) |>
group_by(country_id) |>
mutate(
e_gdppc_lag1 = lag(e_gdppc),
e_peaveduc_lag1 = lag(e_peaveduc),
e_civil_war_lag1 = lag(e_civil_war),
e_pt_coup_lag1 = lag(e_pt_coup),
e_total_oil_income_pc_lag1 = lag(e_total_oil_income_pc)
) |>
ungroup()
model_bg <- glm(regime_change ~
v2x_polyarchy_lag1 +
e_gdppc_lag1 +
e_civil_war_lag1 +
e_pt_coup_lag1 +
e_peaveduc_lag1,
data = vdem_model1,
family = binomial(link = "logit"))
summary(model_bg)
Call:
glm(formula = regime_change ~ v2x_polyarchy_lag1 + e_gdppc_lag1 +
e_civil_war_lag1 + e_pt_coup_lag1 + e_peaveduc_lag1, family = binomial(link = "logit"),
data = vdem_model1)
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
(Intercept) -3.718333 0.242908 -15.308 < 2e-16 ***
v2x_polyarchy_lag1 -2.304493 0.665439 -3.463 0.000534 ***
e_gdppc_lag1 -0.005258 0.011770 -0.447 0.655078
e_civil_war_lag1 0.843364 0.299023 2.820 0.004796 **
e_pt_coup_lag1 0.152310 0.483337 0.315 0.752670
e_peaveduc_lag1 0.013442 0.056318 0.239 0.811347
---
Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
(Dispersion parameter for binomial family taken to be 1)
Null deviance: 817.32 on 6087 degrees of freedom
Residual deviance: 781.71 on 6082 degrees of freedom
(21825 observations deleted due to missingness)
AIC: 793.71
Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 82.5 Visualizing Marginal Effects
plot(allEffects(model1))
plot(allEffects(model_bg))
2.6 Interpretation
Initial results suggest that lower levels of electoral democracy and active civil conflict significantly increase the likelihood of regime change. However, economic indicators such as GDP and education do not appear to have strong predictive power in this specification.
3 RQ2: What factors influence the establishment of communist regimes?
regime_transitions |>
filter(str_detect(current_histname, "People's Republic") |
str_detect(current_histname, "Socialist Republic") |
str_detect(current_histname, "Socialist") |
str_detect(current_histname, "Soviet") |
str_detect(current_histname, "Democratic People's Republic")) |>
arrange(year)| country_id | country_name | year | previous_histname | current_histname |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Russia | 1918 | Russia | Russian Socialist Federative Republic (USSR) |
| 210 | Hungary | 1918 | Hungarian half of the Habsburg Empire [Transleithania] | Hungarian Soviet Republic |
| 210 | Hungary | 1919 | Hungarian Soviet Republic | Hungarian Soviet Republic under Romanian occupation |
| 140 | Uzbekistan | 1920 | Emirate of Bukhara as a Russian protectorate | Bukharan People’s Soviet Republic [Soviet state] |
| 89 | Mongolia | 1924 | Bogd Khaan State | Mongolian People’s Republic |
| 12 | Albania | 1944 | Albanian Kingdom under German occupation | People’s Republic of Albania |
| 190 | Romania | 1944 | Kingdom of Romania | Kingdom of Romania under Soviet occupation |
| 198 | Serbia | 1945 | Kingdom of Yugoslavia under German occupation | Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia |
| 152 | Bulgaria | 1946 | Kingdom of Bulgaria | Bulgarian People’s Republic |
| 210 | Hungary | 1946 | Kingdom of Hungary | Second Hungarian People Republic under Soviet guidance |
| 190 | Romania | 1947 | Kingdom of Romania under Soviet occupation | People’s Republic of Romania |
| 41 | North Korea | 1948 | North Korea under Soviet occupation | Democratic People’s Republic of Korea |
| 157 | Czechia | 1948 | Czechoslovakia | Czechoslovakia Socialist Republic as part of Soviet bloc |
| 110 | China | 1949 | Republic of China [Nationalist China] | People’s Republic of China |
| 17 | Poland | 1952 | Republic of Poland | People’s Republic of Poland |
| 236 | Zanzibar | 1964 | Sultanate of Zanzibar [independent] | People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba |
| 190 | Romania | 1965 | People’s Republic of Romania | Socialist Republic of Romania |
| 23 | South Yemen | 1967 | Federation of South Arabia | People’s Republic of South Yemen |
| 112 | Republic of the Congo | 1970 | Congo Republic | People’s Republic of the Congo |
| 124 | Libya | 1973 | Libyan Arab Republic | Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya |
| 38 | Ethiopia | 1974 | Empire of Ethiopia | Socialist Ethiopia |
| 12 | Albania | 1976 | People’s Republic of Albania | People’s Socialist Republic of Albania |
| 34 | Vietnam | 1976 | Democratic Republic of Vietnam | Socialist Republic of Vietnam |
| 131 | Sri Lanka | 1978 | Republic of Sri Lanka | Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka |
| 55 | Cambodia | 1979 | Democratic Kampuchea under Vietnamese occupation | People’s Republic of Kampuchea under Vietnamese occupation |
| 124 | Libya | 1986 | Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya | Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya |
| 84 | Latvia | 1990 | Republic of Latvia [independent state] | Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic |
| 161 | Estonia | 1990 | Republic of Estonia [independent state] | Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic |
| 173 | Lithuania | 1990 | Republic of Lithuania [independent state] | Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic |
| 38 | Ethiopia | 1991 | Socialist Ethiopia | Socialist Ethiopia [transition phase] |
communist_keywords <- c("People's Republic", "Socialist Republic", "Socialist", "Soviet", "Democratic People's Republic", "People's Democratic Republic")
regime_transitions |>
filter(str_detect(current_histname, str_c(communist_keywords, collapse = "|"))) |>
arrange(country_id, year) |>
group_by(country_id) |>
slice_min(year, n = 1) |>
ungroup() |>
arrange(year)| country_id | country_name | year | previous_histname | current_histname |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Russia | 1918 | Russia | Russian Socialist Federative Republic (USSR) |
| 210 | Hungary | 1918 | Hungarian half of the Habsburg Empire [Transleithania] | Hungarian Soviet Republic |
| 140 | Uzbekistan | 1920 | Emirate of Bukhara as a Russian protectorate | Bukharan People’s Soviet Republic [Soviet state] |
| 89 | Mongolia | 1924 | Bogd Khaan State | Mongolian People’s Republic |
| 12 | Albania | 1944 | Albanian Kingdom under German occupation | People’s Republic of Albania |
| 190 | Romania | 1944 | Kingdom of Romania | Kingdom of Romania under Soviet occupation |
| 198 | Serbia | 1945 | Kingdom of Yugoslavia under German occupation | Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia |
| 152 | Bulgaria | 1946 | Kingdom of Bulgaria | Bulgarian People’s Republic |
| 41 | North Korea | 1948 | North Korea under Soviet occupation | Democratic People’s Republic of Korea |
| 157 | Czechia | 1948 | Czechoslovakia | Czechoslovakia Socialist Republic as part of Soviet bloc |
| 110 | China | 1949 | Republic of China [Nationalist China] | People’s Republic of China |
| 17 | Poland | 1952 | Republic of Poland | People’s Republic of Poland |
| 103 | Algeria | 1962 | French colony | People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria [independent state] |
| 236 | Zanzibar | 1964 | Sultanate of Zanzibar [independent] | People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba |
| 23 | South Yemen | 1967 | Federation of South Arabia | People’s Republic of South Yemen |
| 112 | Republic of the Congo | 1970 | Congo Republic | People’s Republic of the Congo |
| 124 | Libya | 1973 | Libyan Arab Republic | Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya |
| 38 | Ethiopia | 1974 | Empire of Ethiopia | Socialist Ethiopia |
| 123 | Laos | 1975 | Kingdom of Laos [independent state] | Lao People’s Democratic Republic |
| 34 | Vietnam | 1976 | Democratic Republic of Vietnam | Socialist Republic of Vietnam |
| 131 | Sri Lanka | 1978 | Republic of Sri Lanka | Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka |
| 55 | Cambodia | 1979 | Democratic Kampuchea under Vietnamese occupation | People’s Republic of Kampuchea under Vietnamese occupation |
| 84 | Latvia | 1990 | Republic of Latvia [independent state] | Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic |
| 161 | Estonia | 1990 | Republic of Estonia [independent state] | Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic |
| 173 | Lithuania | 1990 | Republic of Lithuania [independent state] | Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic |
Georgia Soviet Socialist Republic缺失政体建立前后时期的数据
Next Steps: We will next turn to more specific questions:
- What factors explain the formation of communist regimes?
- What causes communist regimes to collapse?
- What drives capitalist regimes to transition into communism?
We will construct new binary regime-type indicators to address these questions in subsequent models.
4 RQ3: What factors contribute to the collapse of communist regimes?
5 RQ4: What factors explain the long-term survival of the remaining communist regimes (China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam)?
6 EDA
6.1 Test function in vdemdata package
vdemdata::plot_indicator("v2msuffrage")
# Plot V-Dem indicators liberal democracy and egalitarian democracy
# for Sweden and Germany between 1912 and 2000.
plot_indicator(indicator=c( "v2x_egaldem", "v2x_libdem"), countries = c("Germany", "Sweden"),
min_year = 1912, max_year = 2000)
6.2 What country do we have?
unique(vdem$country_name) [1] "Mexico" "Suriname"
[3] "Sweden" "Switzerland"
[5] "Ghana" "South Africa"
[7] "Japan" "Burma/Myanmar"
[9] "Russia" "Albania"
[11] "Egypt" "Yemen"
[13] "Colombia" "Poland"
[15] "Brazil" "United States of America"
[17] "Portugal" "El Salvador"
[19] "South Yemen" "Bangladesh"
[21] "Bolivia" "Haiti"
[23] "Honduras" "Mali"
[25] "Pakistan" "Peru"
[27] "Senegal" "South Sudan"
[29] "Sudan" "Vietnam"
[31] "Republic of Vietnam" "Afghanistan"
[33] "Argentina" "Ethiopia"
[35] "India" "Kenya"
[37] "North Korea" "South Korea"
[39] "Kosovo" "Lebanon"
[41] "Nigeria" "Philippines"
[43] "Tanzania" "Taiwan"
[45] "Thailand" "Uganda"
[47] "Venezuela" "Benin"
[49] "Bhutan" "Burkina Faso"
[51] "Cambodia" "Indonesia"
[53] "Mozambique" "Nepal"
[55] "Nicaragua" "Niger"
[57] "Zambia" "Zimbabwe"
[59] "Guinea" "Ivory Coast"
[61] "Mauritania" "Canada"
[63] "Australia" "Botswana"
[65] "Burundi" "Cape Verde"
[67] "Central African Republic" "Chile"
[69] "Costa Rica" "Timor-Leste"
[71] "Ecuador" "France"
[73] "Germany" "Guatemala"
[75] "Iran" "Iraq"
[77] "Ireland" "Italy"
[79] "Jordan" "Latvia"
[81] "Lesotho" "Liberia"
[83] "Malawi" "Maldives"
[85] "Mongolia" "Morocco"
[87] "Netherlands" "Panama"
[89] "Papua New Guinea" "Qatar"
[91] "Sierra Leone" "Spain"
[93] "Syria" "Tunisia"
[95] "Türkiye" "Ukraine"
[97] "United Kingdom" "Uruguay"
[99] "Algeria" "Angola"
[101] "Armenia" "Azerbaijan"
[103] "Belarus" "Cameroon"
[105] "Chad" "China"
[107] "Democratic Republic of the Congo" "Republic of the Congo"
[109] "Djibouti" "Dominican Republic"
[111] "Eritrea" "Gabon"
[113] "The Gambia" "Georgia"
[115] "Guinea-Bissau" "Jamaica"
[117] "Kazakhstan" "Kyrgyzstan"
[119] "Laos" "Libya"
[121] "Madagascar" "Moldova"
[123] "Namibia" "Palestine/West Bank"
[125] "Rwanda" "Somalia"
[127] "Sri Lanka" "Eswatini"
[129] "Tajikistan" "Togo"
[131] "Trinidad and Tobago" "Turkmenistan"
[133] "German Democratic Republic" "Palestine/Gaza"
[135] "Somaliland" "Uzbekistan"
[137] "Austria" "Bahrain"
[139] "Barbados" "Belgium"
[141] "Bosnia and Herzegovina" "Bulgaria"
[143] "Comoros" "Croatia"
[145] "Cuba" "Cyprus"
[147] "Czechia" "Denmark"
[149] "Equatorial Guinea" "Estonia"
[151] "Fiji" "Finland"
[153] "Greece" "Guyana"
[155] "Hong Kong" "Iceland"
[157] "Israel" "Kuwait"
[159] "Lithuania" "Luxembourg"
[161] "North Macedonia" "Malaysia"
[163] "Malta" "Mauritius"
[165] "Montenegro" "New Zealand"
[167] "Norway" "Oman"
[169] "Paraguay" "Romania"
[171] "Sao Tome and Principe" "Saudi Arabia"
[173] "Serbia" "Seychelles"
[175] "Singapore" "Slovakia"
[177] "Slovenia" "Solomon Islands"
[179] "Vanuatu" "United Arab Emirates"
[181] "Palestine/British Mandate" "Hungary"
[183] "Zanzibar" "Baden"
[185] "Bavaria" "Modena"
[187] "Parma" "Saxony"
[189] "Tuscany" "Würtemberg"
[191] "Two Sicilies" "Hanover"
[193] "Hesse-Kassel" "Hesse-Darmstadt"
[195] "Mecklenburg Schwerin" "Papal States"
[197] "Hamburg" "Brunswick"
[199] "Oldenburg" "Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach"
[201] "Nassau" "Piedmont-Sardinia" Pick out German, Russia and China
selected_data <- vdem |>
filter(country_text_id %in% c("DEU", "RUS", "CHN")) |>
select(where(~ !any(is.na(.))))selected_data |>
group_by(country_text_id) |>
summarize(
years_available = sum(!is.na(v2csreprss)),
year_min = min(year[!is.na(v2csreprss)]),
year_max = max(year[!is.na(v2csreprss)])
)| country_text_id | years_available | year_min | year_max |
|---|---|---|---|
| CHN | 236 | 1789 | 2024 |
| DEU | 232 | 1789 | 2024 |
| RUS | 236 | 1789 | 2024 |
ggplot(selected_data, aes(x = year, y = v2csreprss, color = country_text_id)) +
geom_point() +
labs(
title = "CSO Repression Over Time (V-Dem v2csreprss)",
x = "Year",
y = "Civil Society Repression",
color = "Country"
) +
scale_color_manual(
values = c("DEU" = "black", "RUS" = "red", "CHN" = "blue"),
labels = c("Germany", "Russia", "China")
) +
theme_minimal()