The Global State of Democracy is a report that aims to provide policymakers with an evidence-based analysis of the state of global democracy, supported by the Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices, in order to inform policy interventions and identify problem-solving approaches to trends affecting the quality of democracy around the world.

This document presents revised and updated information about all the variables included in the GSoD Indices data set that enabled the construction of Version 8 of the GSoD Indices, which depicts democratic trends at the country, regional and global levels across a broad range of different attributes of democracy in the period 1975–2023.

The data underlying the GSoD Indices is based on a total of 165 indicators developed by various scholars and organizations using different types of sources, including expert surveys, standards-based coding by research groups and analysts, observational data and composite measures.