Generating Better Data

The comments on our article are a sign of the seriousness with which scholars are considering matters of data generation and, more specifically, the problem of conceptualizing and measuring democracy. Hence we welcome the authors’ reflections on the difficult yet essential task of generating better data. Some points of disagreement remain, and we will address them. But we mainly seek to discuss and build on the constructive suggestions provided in the commentaries and, using the basic framework we provide in our article, outline a set of issues that future research should tackle.