Abstract

As democratic institutions weaken globally, this paper investigates whether year-to-year fluctuations in democracy levels correspond to similar deviations in statistical capacity —a country's ability to produce reliable statistics for policymaking. Utilizing a dynamic two-stage mediation framework, we further examine how these democratic fluctuations relate to country‑level progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals. While previous research has uncovered correlations between democracy and statistical performance, democracy and sustainable development, and statistical capacity and development, the causal mechanisms and temporal dynamics of these relationships remain underexplored. We employ panel two‑way fixed‑effects and first‑difference techniques with temporal lags to analyze within‑country changes in democracy, statistical capacity, and SDG performance across 155 countries from 2016 to 2023. This research contributes to the understanding of the democracy-data-development nexus and could help inform policy interventions aimed at preserving statistical capacity and integrity during periods of political uncertainty.