Bastian Herre

A line chart showing annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry (not land use) for several countries from 1750 to 2024. Data from the Global Carbon Budget (2025)

We just published our “Top of the Charts”, a look at our most popular charts, articles, data insights & more in 2025! (link in 🧵)

Here are our top 5 most-viewed charts.

Each Friday over the next few weeks, we’ll share the top 5 for other categories (articles, etc.). Stay tuned!

1. CO2 emissions

Sounds interesting! What is it about?

Paths to Power (PtP) is out in @bjpols.bsky.social! It is a database with data on cabinet members' social profile globally from 1966-2021.

This is a great team effort with @chknutsen.bsky.social, @peterla.bsky.social, @inalkristiansen.bsky.social. But many more helped us along the way 🙏

A short 🧵

🚨 out at @apsrjournal.bsky.social 🚨

➡️ We ran a large media literacy experiment to fight misinformation
➡️ 13,500 students, 583 villages in Bihar, India
➡️Created custom misinfo curriculum of 4 months
➡️Partnered w the government to roll it out as an official course in classrooms

hopeful findings👇🏽

Explaining the emergence and consolidation of right-wing populism: Part I Stylised facts, or what has actually happened?

First instalment of my substack primer on right-wing populism in Europe is out.
jacobedenhofer.substack.com/p/explaining...

Does China Underconsume? Misadventures in Alternative Data

This is a fun short post by @global-developments.org:

It may seem as if Chinese households consume less than people in other countries with similar income levels.

But that might be instead because the country’s data overstates both inflation and GDP:

www.global-developments.org/p/does-china...

Map of countries where the DHS was the only source of maternal mortality data

In February, the US gov shut down the Demographic & Health Surveys.

It was the only data source on maternal & child health, births, household structure in many countries – making it crucial for research.

In a new article I explain why it should be rescued.
ourworldindata.org/demographic-...

On Data and Democracy (Mid-Year Roundup): Charting the Assault on American Democracy and A Path Forward A narrative of a democracy in the balance, told through 29 data visualizations.

Been a busy year in the data mines.📊 Just published my mid-year roundup: 29 data visualizations on the state of US democracy, tracking everything from judicial resistance to billionaire influence to why Dems have a mobilization crisis, not a moderation problem.

All charts free to use:

How is Britain doing under Keir Starmer? Our monthly tracker shows whether Labour is meeting expectations

Cool that @economist.com‬ surveyed Brits about what they cared most about, and then put together indicators to track how the current government is doing on those issues!

www.economist.com/interactive/...

Famines kill far fewer people today than they did in the past, but remain a major threat—

Famines are still a major global problem. From 2020 to 2023 alone, they caused over a million deaths.

Yet the long-term trend shows significant progress.

Opinion | How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy? And how exactly can we tell whether America has crossed the line?

How can we tell a country is not a democracy (anymore)?

One way of looking at it:

When people are punished for peacefully opposing those in power — when they have to worry about publishing critical opinions, supporting opposition candidates, or protesting.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/o...

How do the rights of LGBT+ people vary across the world? 🧵

The first map shows the nearly 40 countries that allow same-sex partners to marry, affirming their right to love and form a family. However, the majority of countries don’t recognize same-sex marriage, or outright ban it.

The key chart right now:

Usually US economic pain is cushioned by falling bond yields and a strengthening dollar, which mean lower interest rates and more spending power for consumers.

This time we’re seeing the opposite, meaning the pain will be amplified.

A bar chart titled "Global deaths from famines, 1870-2023" that displays total deaths per decade from famines estimated to have killed 100,000 people or more. Notable points include the "Great Leap Forward" in China, marked to show an estimated 36 million deaths from 1958 to 1962, and famines during World War II claiming approximately 25 million lives across the USSR, Europe, and Asia. The late 19th and early 20th centuries show significant famines occurring in Russia, India, China, and other regions. The text notes that the largest famines from the 1970s and 80s took place in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Ethiopia. The chart indicates that since 1990, major famines have occurred in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, North Korea, Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan. The chart is from Our World in Data. The data source is the World Peace Foundation's Historic Famines Dataset.

How many people died in large famines over the past 150 years?

📊 We've updated the data in many of our charts on famine, including a big update from the World Peace Foundation (@worldpeacefdtn.bsky.social).

This update was led on our team by @bastianherre.bsky.social and Veronika Samborska.

Yes — our source, @vdeminstitute.bsky.social, won't have data for the US in 2025 until March 2026.

But its most recent report discusses the most recent developments in the US a bit already, on page 46/47:

www.v-dem.net/documents/60...

Democracy Data Explorer Explore changes in the world's democratic and non-democratic systems.

Here they are:

ourworldindata.org/explorers/de...

Several countries have recently managed to stop and even reverse the erosion of their democratic institutions.

In each case, people resisted growing authoritarianism.

This shows that when democracy deteriorates, its fate is not sealed, and democratic institutions can be reclaimed.

Chart of cumulative protests reported from Jan 22 - Feb 28, 2017 vs 2025:

Chart showing lives saved by US foreign aid by sector, lives potentially lost per day during aid freeze, cost per life saved, annual US aid amount.

Estimates by @charlesjkenny.bsky.social @justsand.bsky.social:

US foreign aid likely prevents 2.3 to 5.6 million deaths annually, largely in Africa.

And that a complete disruption would result in over 4000 lives lost per day.

The last paragraph of my new article, Voting in Authoritarian Elections. We first wrote these words in 2019.

Deaths in state-based conflicts by type Included are deaths of combatants and civilians due to fighting in interstate, intrastate, and extrasystemic conflicts that were ongoing that year.

Thanks for your interest in our data! We also have an updated version of the longer-term chart shown above:

ourworldindata.org/grapher/deat...

That's a good question! The data has a pretty broad definition of "multi-party" elections: it just means that more than one party is able to stand in the elections.

And elections are "competitive" if there is no consequential fraud, no systematic intimidation of voters, and elections are timely.

That's a good question. I think in part it's because recent democratic erosion has been slower and less visible.

It even hasn't primarily affected elections, but liberal institutions — checks and balances, civil liberties, and minority rights.

The world has recently become less democratic Many more people have democratic rights than in the past. Some of this progress has recently been reversed.

Thank you! Then you may also appreciate our article on how the world has recently become less democratic:

ourworldindata.org/less-democra...

More than 80% of countries vote, but less than 40% do so freely and fairly.

Most countries grant their citizens the right to vote and have multi-party elections for parliament and government.

But many fewer countries have genuinely competitive elections and freedoms of expression and association.

Opinion | The Chilling Consequences of Going Along With Trump The voluntarily surrender of the public’s power is how autocracies are built.

Very thoughtful by @mashagessen.bsky.social on why people self-censor and obey — concern for others, a supposed higher purpose, picking one's battles, if-I-don’t-do-it-someone-else-will, the zeitgeist — and why one shouldn't do it.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/08/o...

Hard-right parties are now Europe’s most popular But our number crunching shows that they have mostly been kept out of power

This is a good brief overview of the recent rise of hard-right parties in Europe, which have recently attracted more votes than conservative and social-democratic parties:

www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

🚨New paper alert!🚨 @anthlittle.bsky.social and I are excited to share “Presidential Election Concessions.” We present a new global dataset on concessions in presidential elections in all countries worldwide from 1980 to 2024 /1

Nuclear Weapons How many states have nuclear weapons, and how many warheads do they have? How is this changing over time? Explore research and data on nuclear weapons.

This is a great resource, thanks a lot for putting it together!

You may also find the data and writing on our topic page on Nuclear Weapons helpful:

ourworldindata.org/nuclear-weap...

The Spreadsheet | learnwmd

☢️ I've collected 800+ resources for those working on WMD issues in my "LearnWMD Spreadsheet"

learnwmd.wixsite.com/learnwmd/the...

Recently, I've gone through and updated all links & information. I've also broken out the OSINT resources into their own tab.

Be sure to check it out!