PACL based on PACL in democracy_info?

[jackobailey]

Apologies for the multiple issues, but I'm using the package and spotting things as I go through.

I'm trying to work out which of the various dichotomous variables are based on which other variables. The democracy_info object shows that the various pacl data sets are based on PACL and that PIPE is based on PIPE. Is this correct? If so, does this refer to previous versions of the data set?

[xmarquez]

Hi Jack - Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean? PACL or DD (probably should be DD) is the basis for a bunch of dichotomous measures (e.g., BMR. GWF, Magaloni et al, etc.) all of which seem to take at least some of the original DD coding rules and extend the data in time or change the measure slightly depending on their own purposes; they are not new versions of the dataset, but they seem closely related. There is an actual update of the PACL dataset from Bjorsnkow and Rode. PIPE is Przeworski's political institutions data - it does not provide a democracy measure directly, but instructions for creating one (and which I don't think I calculated correctly - I would not use it). A bit more on the relationship between the different measures is here: https://xmarquez.github.io/democracyData/articles/Relationships_between_democracy_measures.html

See also https://xmarquez.github.io/democracyData/reference/pacl.html, https://xmarquez.github.io/democracyData/reference/pacl_update.html, https://xmarquez.github.io/democracyData/reference/PIPE.html , https://xmarquez.github.io/democracyData/reference/svolik_regime.html (noting how it departs from DD)

[jackobailey]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant that they seem to be self referential. I.e. the democracy_info object implies that PACL is based on PACL and that PIPE is based on PIPE. Shouldn't the based_on values in these cases be NA?

[xmarquez]

Good point - it should be NA!