It is very gratifying to see that the Varieties of Democracy dataset is now being widely used and cited, not only by researchers but also by international organizations, development agencies, activists, teachers, and students. Because some users want to know more about where the data come from, we've written a book documenting the story of the project and all the decisions about concepts, data collection, coders, the measurement model, index construction, validity, and even some tips on getting the most out of the data. This book, Varieties of Democracy: Measuring Two Centuries of Political Change, is now in production at Cambridge University Press and forthcoming in 2019. So many people have made indispensable contributions to the project that the book has 23 co-authors, among which are (besides me) two former Kellogg Visiting Fellows (John Gerring and David Altman), former Notre Dame graduate student Fernando Bizzarro (political science), and seven others who have lectured or participated in conferences or workshops at the Kellogg Institute: Staffan Lindberg, Jan Teorell, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Dan Pemstein, Michael Bernhard, Kelly McMann, and Jeff Staton.

The "What We're..." series is a collection of brief reflections written by Kellogg-affiliated scholars on a subject of their choice, explaining a current topic of scholarly reflection – what they're excited about, concerned over, following closely, reading, etc. To submit a reflection, contact KI_Updates@nd.edu for more information.