Political Systems / Regime Type
See also the resources on my companion page for the ISA Compendium's "Review of Available Data Sets" article, which may have been updated more recently than some of the resources on this page.
My Foreign Governments and Politics page may also provide relevant information or data.
Polity IV Project: The official home of the Polity data, the most widely used source for data on each country's political structures since 1800. Links from this main page allow users to download the codebook and data, as well as accessing separate web pages about each country. Note that Kristian Gleditsch has also produced an unofficial modified Polity data set that uses the Gleditsch/Ward system membership list,.
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: Entire world, since 1800
- Variables Included: Country, year, democracy / autocracy / polity indices, polity durability, executive recruitment regulation / competition / openness, executive constraints, and regulation / competitiveness of political participation, executive recruitment / executive constraints / political competition concept variables, data on regime transitions (including prior / interim / post polity codes and state failure)
Dictatorial Peace regime data (data collected by Barbara Geddes and employed by Peceny et al., which allows the user to distinguish between different types of authoritarian regimes that would otherwise by lumped together as "non-democratic" in most analyses of regime type: personalist, military, and single-party authoritarian regimes. Note that this page offers a link to a huge data set that is the replication file for Peceny et al.'s article; I have not found a source for Geddes' original data online by itself.)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
- Variables Included: (list forthcoming)
Tatu Vanhanen's Polyarchy Data Archive
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: 187 countries, 1810-2000
- Variables Included: Vanhanen's country number, year, competition, participation, democracy index, COW state name abbreviation and country number
Russett/Oneal Triangulating Peace data: Replication data for Bruce Russett and John Oneal's 2001 book. These data sets have been widely used by other scholars as a starting point for their own analyses. The above link is to the STATA version of the data; they also provide an ASCII version
- Spatial-Temporal Domain:
- Variables Included:
Political Rights and Freedoms
My Foreign Governments and Politics page may also provide relevant information or data.
Freedom House's Freedom in the World (see especially their downloadable comparative and historical data.)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: all independent countries, 1973-present
- Variables Included: freedom ratings and status
Freedom House's Freedom of the Press (see especially their downloadable historical data.)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: all independent countries, 1980-present
- Variables Included: press freedom ratings and status
Freedom House's Nations in Transit (tracing political and socioeconomic reforms in 29 former communist countries; the site provides access to annual reports covering each country's reform status as well as comparisons over time.)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: 29 former communist states in Europe and Eurasia, 1999-present
- Variables Included: political and socioeconomic reforms
Freedom House's Countries at the Crossroads (tracing the quality of governance in 60 strategically important countries worldwide; the site provides access to both country reports and quantitative data.)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: 60 strategically important countries
- Variables Included: government accountability, civil liberties, rule of law, anticorruption efforts and transparency
Press Freedom Data (from Doug Van Belle; the data set does not appear to be available online any more, but this link allows you to email him to request a copy)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: 1948-1994
- Variables Included: (list forthcoming)
Human Rights Data (from Poe and Tate's article in the 1994 APSR )
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
- Variables Included: (list forthcoming)
MIRPS/SIP Governance Data (from Gates, Hegre, Jones, and Strand's 2006 AJPS article "Institutional Inconsistency and Political Instability: Persistence and Change in Political Systems Revisited, 1800-2000.")
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
- Variables Included: (list forthcoming)
Political Leadership
My Foreign Governments and Politics page may also provide relevant information or data.
World Rulers (a chronological list of each country's kings, presidents, and other chief executives; prime ministers and foreign ministers; leaders of eight international organizations; and summaries of important leadership-related events since 1996)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: entire world, 1900-present
- Variables Included: office held, dates in office, dates of birth and death
World Statesmen.org (a "database of the rulers of nations, colonies, international and religious organizations, and other polities from about 1700"; where possible includes maps, flags, constitutions, nation anthems, and history of each country -- including past dependencies or colonial rulers -- as well as emperors, kings, regents, presidents, prime ministers, governors, and other statesmen)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: entire world, around 1700-present (including states, major IGOs, and many other entities)
- Variables Included: office held, dates in office, dates of birth and death, political party (where relevant)
States and Regents of the World (covers a variety of different entities, ranging from nation-states to internal subdivisions and religious orders; includes history of each entity, as well as lists of emperors, kings, presidents, and important ministers)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: entire world, around 1700-present
- Variables Included: office held, dates in office, dates of birth and death
World Political Leaders 1945-2008 (one of many useful lists available in Robert Ortiz de Zarate's Political Collections; see also lists of European governments since 1980, current rulers with longest times in office contemporary female leaders, and first African leaders after independence)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: entire world (temporal coverage varies)
- Variables Included: (varies)
Chiefs of State and Cabinet Ministers of Foreign Governments (from the CIA)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: entire world, current year
- Variables Included: country, office held, leader name
Congresses, Parliaments, and Legislatures
My Foreign Governments and Politics page may also provide relevant information or data.
Party List Nomination Procedures in National Legislatures, 1948-1993 (from Eric Reinhardt)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: All countries that have participated in one or more GATT disputes, 1945-1993 ("usually with filled-in observations only for the years surrounding its dispute involvement")
- Variables Included: % of seats per relevant chamber in the national legislature elected in from closed party lists, as well as from either closed or preferential vote (i.e., open) party lists.
Elections
My Foreign Governments and Politics page may also provide relevant information or data.
Arend Lijphart's Election Data Archive (district-level data from 350 legislative elections in 26 countries)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
- Variables Included: (list forthcoming)
Elections Around The World (political parties and election results from around the world)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
- Variables Included: (list forthcoming)
World Elections and Electoral Systems by Country (from Keele)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
- Variables Included: (list forthcoming)
Public Opinion
My Foreign Governments and Politics page may also provide relevant information or data.
European Public Opinion (data from a number of surveys of EU member states, including the Eurobarometer series)
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
- Variables Included: (list forthcoming)
Miscellaneous Political Data
Political Database of the Americas
- Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
- Variables Included: (list forthcoming)
http://www.paulhensel.org/datapol.html
Last updated: 30 July 2018
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Paul R. Hensel. All rights reserved.
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