One of the most complex concepts in political science is democracy. While we all have a feel for what it is, whether it is elections, civil liberties, freedom of speech, or a combination of all of the above, it’s rather complicated to measure how democratic a country is. In a context like Venezuela’s rapidly evolving political environment, it’s essential to have a benchmark to evaluate whether the transition the country is experiencing is toward democracy or toward something entirely different.
Now, a group of political scientists is proposing one way to measure it: comparing it to the installation of an operating system.
“Installing Democracy” is a project led by political scientists Beatriz Fernández and Pablo Hernández Borges to operationalize democracy in Venezuela. It’s part of Umbral, an initiative created by Hernández Borges after January 3rd to evaluate the possible outcomes of Venezuela’s political crisis, drawing from experts and the public.
Hernández Borges said the initiative emerged partly as a way to combat misinformation, “with the goal of showing citizens that a transition is a very complex process and that it will not happen quickly. This platform sheds light on the path toward transition at a moment when people feel that democracy is at the threshold of possibility.”
A group of experts then independently evaluates each action on a scale from 0 to 100% based on the available evidence. Their assessments are aggregated into a common estimate.
The new branch of the project, rather than presenting potential outcomes, shows a progress bar from 0 to 100%. The project’s creators envision democracy holistically, rather than as an “on and off switch.” Their methodology divides the transition into 11 pillars, ranging from human rights, security, and institutions to political competition, elections, justice, and the economy.
To calculate the percentage shown on the dashboard, the project identifies 60 key variables consisting of tangible events, timeframes, and verifiable indicators. These include the release of political prisoners, the opening of the electoral registry, press freedom, the renewal of electoral authorities and, eventually, the holding of free elections. Drawing from existing proposals for Venezuela’s democratic transition, the project organizes these actions along an 18-month timeline starting in August 2026, with each one assigned a deadline, an indicator, and a source of verification. A group of experts then independently evaluates each action on a scale from 0 to 100% based on the available evidence, and their assessments are aggregated into a common estimate.
The resulting score places each action into one of four categories: completed, in progress, pending or unfulfilled, or not yet evaluable. This structure allows the dashboard to capture an uneven transition. Currently, it lists the installation of democracy at 7%.
The identities of the 13 expert evaluators are kept anonymous. “They are a highly qualified group. They are Venezuelan academics, both inside and outside the country. There’s also a group of Spanish academics with expertise in transitions and knowledge of the Venezuelan context,” said Beatriz Fernández.
“These are not variables like measuring a kilo of sugar, whether it’s 800 or 783 grams. We don’t have the precision of the hard sciences. This is an informed approximation…”
Fernández joined Umbral with “Installing Democracy” after previously working with Varieties of Democracy, or V-Dem, a leading global research project that measures different dimensions of democracy across countries using hundreds of indicators and assessments from country experts. Her experience with V-Dem helped inform the project’s approach, alongside elements drawn from presidential performance trackers.
Still, Fernández acknowledged that measuring democracy is particularly complicated. “These are not variables like measuring a kilo of sugar, whether it’s 800 or 783 grams. We don’t have the precision of the hard sciences. This is an informed approximation, which is what experts do and which is valid.”
When users log into “Installing Democracy”, they can see the individual variables, the entity responsible for each aspect of the transition, the verifiable indicators, and the overall progress bar for each of the “milestones” of Venezuela’s potential democratic transition. In addition, it’s possible to see the progress, stagnation or backsliding of each milestone. Moreover, the dashboard includes countdowns for the scheduled end of the negotiation table between the interim authorities and the 2015 National Assembly, the US Midterm elections, and the end of the proposed 18-month roadmap.
Ultimately, the purpose of the project is to show audiences that the discussion of democracy goes deeper than whether elections are held or not. Fernández and Hernández Borges emphasize that the conditions under which those elections take place, and whether their results are respected, are just as important. In fact, they argue that projects like this one invite citizens to think beyond elections as the “be-all and end-all” of a democratic transition and, as their press release puts it, to evaluate “the forest rather than the latest event.” At 7%, the forest is still very much taking shape.