Policy BriefEconomics & Development
Development Finance and Institutional Resilience in Emerging Markets
Karolina Nowak-Dubois, Adaeze Okonkwo
Dataset · Democracy, Rights & Society
Civic Space & Democratic Participation Tracker
A source-linked tracker of civic-space restrictions, associational freedoms and electoral integrity across 96 countries since 2015.
Overview
The Civic Space & Democratic Participation Tracker records changes in the legal and practical space available for assembly, association, independent media and electoral competition across 96 countries. Each entry links a coded indicator to the underlying legislative text, court ruling or documented incident, so a score can be traced back to its primary source. The tracker is designed for comparative and time-series analysis rather than as a single country ranking, and it is updated on a fixed twice-yearly cycle with interim flags issued when a major legal change is documented between releases. It is intended for use by researchers, journalists and international organisations seeking a transparent, source-linked record rather than a summary judgement.
Access and downloads
This dataset is open. The extract below is free to download and reuse under a CC BY 4.0 licence, with attribution to the International Research Institute. The full series is also available on request in other formats, including a JSON API.
| country | iso3 | year | civic_space_score | assembly_freedom | association_freedom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| South Korea | KOR | 2015 | 79.1 | 79.1 | 85.7 |
| South Korea | KOR | 2016 | 79.5 | 79.1 | 84.2 |
| South Korea | KOR | 2017 | 76.8 | 74.4 | 83.6 |
| South Korea | KOR | 2018 | 77.3 | 77.2 | 83.2 |
| South Korea | KOR | 2019 | 79.3 | 79.8 | 84.2 |
| South Korea | KOR | 2020 | 78.1 | 79.7 | 82.8 |
Showing the first 6 of 336 rows and 6 of 10 columns. Download the CSV or JSON above for the complete extract.
Coverage over time
Illustrative schematic — not source data.
| Year | Countries |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 38 |
| 2017 | 61 |
| 2019 | 75 |
| 2021 | 82 |
| 2022 | 84 |
| 2024 | 86 |
| 2026 | 96 |
Methodology
Expert coding validated by dual-blind review; disagreements are resolved by a third coder, with inter-coder reliability statistics published alongside each release.
The full construction, weighting choices and coding rules are documented in the public codebook released with each version, and the dataset is published under a CC BY 4.0 licence.
Sources
- Coding of national legislation on assembly, association and press freedom
- Partner monitoring organisations' incident logs, cross-checked against primary sources
- Election-management-body reporting and independent observer-mission findings
Coverage
- Temporal coverage
- 2015–2026, semi-annual
- Spatial coverage
- 96 countries, with denser sampling in states undergoing active legal change
- Unit of observation
- country-year
- Indicators
- 31 variables
Update frequency
Updated twice yearly, in January and July, with ad hoc flags for major legal changes.
Last updated .
Related research
Publications drawing on this evidence
- Policy Brief
The team
