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Cornell University

Cornell Brooks Public Policy

DARE

Democratic Attacks and Resistance Events (DARE) Dataset and Research Project

The Center on Global Democracy is home to the Democratic Attacks and Resistance Events (DARE) dataset. With the help of over two dozen research assistants, the center has amassed around 2,000 events considered attacks on democracy across 28 countries that have experienced democratic backsliding since 2000. This structured, events-based dataset helps fill a critical gap between studying democratic backsliding and resistance through deep country empirical data and quantitative indices, and linking types of backsliding attacks to particular resistance strategies and interactions. 

Drawing on a multitude of existing data and reports (including UN Human Rights Country Reports, the DEED Democratic Erosion Consortium, V-Dem Country Reports, and web scrapping of all available reports of episodes), the DARE dataset includes numerous categories of coding surrounding attacks on democracy including the date, instigators, target spaces, individuals, or institutions, method and severity of the attack to help understand patterns of backsliding over time. The key contribution of the DARE dataset is the matching of resistance efforts against attacks to determine how effective they are. We provide a narrative summary of resistance reaction and code this information by actors, actions, and degree of mobilization. This allows us to analyze what prompts resistance and how effective it is to reserving, slowing, and blocking attacks. 

The DARE dataset is currency being finalized and cleaned for analysis, and not currently publicly available. We plan to release the dataset publicly in 2026. The principal investigators are Paul Friesen and Rachel Beatty Riedl.

This image shows a column of instigators on the left side, and a column of democratic spaces on the right side. For each instigator a line is shown connecting the various democratic spaces, with the thickness of the line representing how common attacks are from that specific instigator to the specific target. The figure highlights that most attacks originate from the executive or lead, the bureaucratic state, or the legislature. Most most common democratic space targeted is the media, followed by civil society organization, and civil liberties.]

This image shows a grid of 25 circles with varying sizes and colors. The y-axis is Attack Scope ordered 1 to 5, and the X-axis is Attack Magnitudes ordered 1 to 5. The size of each point on the grid corresponds to how often attacks of that specific Scope and Magnitude scores occur. The color of each circle ranges from dark blue representing that attacks at these scores are mostly abuse of power, and red representing an even balance between abuse of power attacks and legal attacks. This figure only shows attacks on democratic social spaces, and most attacks are smaller in scope, with most circles being colored blue representing a higher proportion of abuse of power attacks.

This image shows a grid of 25 circles with varying sizes and colors. The y-axis is Attack Scope ordered 1 to 5, and the X-axis is Attack Magnitudes ordered 1 to 5. The size of each point on the grid corresponds to how often attacks of that specific Scope and Magnitude scores occur. The color of each circle ranges from dark blue representing that attacks at these scores are mostly abuse of power, and red representing an even balance between abuse of power attacks and legal attacks. This figure only shows attack on democratic institutions, and attacks with higher scope and magnitude tend to be redder and somewhat more common.