Datasets
World of Political Science, 2019 and 2023
The first ECPR-IPSA World of Political Science survey (WPS-2019), conducted in conjunction with the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) and the International Political Science Association (IPSA), was implemented by Pippa Norris in spring 2019.
This second study, WPS-2023, updates the evidence, pursues new themes, and provides a representative profile of the political science profession across the globe.
Subsequent surveys are planned to build on this baseline every few years to replicate and monitor developments, as well as adding new thematic issues.
The World of Political Science (WPS) surveys of the profession have been designed to gather information about multiple aspects within the discipline, including 1. Nation of current work or study; 2. Academic work experiences, satisfaction, and perceptions; 3. Ideological values; 4. Equality, diversity and inclusion within the discipline; 5. Experience and perceptions of academic freedom; 6. Preferences for in-person or online communications; 7. Their background characteristics, including socio-demographic, educational qualifications, institutional contexts, methods and sub-fields; 8. Academic geographic mobility; and 9. The macro-level national context of academic and media freedom within each society of work or study, from V-Dem 13.0. The surveys provide the broadest geographic scope for any previous equivalent study in the discipline.
For the WPS-2023 survey, 1,989 responses were collected online between 29 November 2022 and 31 January 2023. This included replies from respondents who were currently studying or working in 103 countries located in eight global region.
In addition to the individual or micro-level survey data, contextual information about the country or macro-level data from the latest available year closest to the WPS survey was merged from several sources, including from the Varieties of Democracy project (V-Dem 13, March 2023), with full information about the construction of these variables available from the V-Dem V13 Codebook.
RESULTS, PUBLICATIONS, DOCUMENTATION AND DATA
The initial profile of the profession from WPS-2019 was published in Pippa Norris “The World of Political Science: Internationalization and its Consequences” as Chapter 3 in European Political Science at 50 Eds. Isabelle Engeli, Thibaud Boncourt, and Diego Garzia. Essex: ECPR Press (summer 2020).
The analysis of perceptions and attitudes towards the ‘cancel culture’ were published in Pippa Norris. 2021. ‘Cancel Culture: Myth or Reality’, Political Studies.
Further analysis is available from Pippa Norris. 2023. ‘Cancel Culture: Heterodox self-censorship or the curious case of the dog-which-didn’t-bark.’ SSRN. HKS Working Paper RWP23-020.
The WPS-2023 dataset, questionnaire and codebook can be downloaded from Harvard’s Dataverse
The baseline WPS-2019 dataset, questionnaire, and codebook can also all be downloaded from Dataverse.
Global Party Survey, 2019
The Global Party Survey, 2019 (GPS) is an international expert survey directed by Pippa Norris (Harvard University).
Drawing on 1,861 party and election experts, the Global Party Survey, 2019 estimates key ideological values, issue positions, and populist rhetoric for 1,043 parties in 163 countries.
The research project is designed to replicate the tried and tested methods of expert surveys, while simultaneously innovating and broadening the research agenda in several important ways. By expanding the geographic scope of coverage, including parties and countries in all inhabited continents, it allows users to move beyond the traditional focus on Europe. By incorporating continuous scaled measures of populist rhetoric, as well as ideological values, analysts can compare the degree to which all parties commonly adopt this discourse, not simply confining analysis to those designated a priori in binary categories as ‘populist’ parties. By including party codes used in many other related cross-national studies, the dataset facilitates easy merger for multilevel analysis, such as by comparing party positions with their institutional characteristics or with the attitudes of their voters. At the same time, however, sufficient continuity is preserved with prior research measuring party positions to facilitate comparison with these established datasets. Several robustness and validity tests increase confidence in the external validity of the new study.
Full details can be found at the project website, www.GlobalPartySurvey.org, including a paper discussing the measurement of populism worldwide, and the codebook, questionnaire and data in several formats can be downloaded from the GPS’s Dataverse.
Released date: 22 Feb 2020
British General Election Constituency Results, 2010-2019
Description: This dataset includes parliamentary constituency results for four successive UK General Elections (held on the 6th May 2010, 7th May 2015, 8th June 2017, and 12th December 2019). It also contains the estimated Brexit referendum vote by constituency (calculated by Chris Hanretty) and the 2011 census results. The data-set includes the share of the vote for each party, the candidates for each party, the vote swing, seat changes, and 2011 constituency demographics.
The 2010 General Election was held on revised constituency boundaries. As a result, for continuity this dataset also contains the Rallings and Thrasher estimated 2005 results under the new boundaries.
Files include:
Codebook Census Data (28 May 2010)
Released: December 2019 (Replaces and incorporates previous versions of the dataset)
British General Election Constituency Results, 1992-2005.
Description: This dataset contains parliamentary constituency election results for four successive UK general elections (held on 9th April 1992, 1st May 1997, 7th June 2001 and 5th May 2005). The dataset records the votes, seats and candidates for each contest and the constituency-level matched census data.
The next General Election was held on 6th May 2010 using revised constituency boundaries. As a result, for continuity the above dataset also contains the Rallings and Thrasher estimated 2005 results under the new 2010 boundaries.
Release date: May 2005 (Links fixed 22 Apr 2020)
The expert survey of Perception of Electoral Integrity (PEI_7.0) (2019)
Description: How do we know when elections meet international standards and principles - and when they fail? To examine this issue, the Electoral Integrity Project has developed a new survey of expert perceptions of electoral integrity.
Methods: The latest (May 2019) release 7.0 covers PEI-7.0 cumulative release covers 336 national parliamentary and presidential contests held worldwide in 166 countries from 1 July 2012 to 31 December 2018. For each contest, 40 election experts receive an electronic invitation to fill the survey. The survey includes assessments from 3,821 election experts, with a mean response rate of 28%. The study collects 49 indicators to compare elections. These indicators are clustered to evaluate eleven stages in the electoral cycle as well as generating an overall summary Perception of Electoral Integrity (PEI) 100-point index and comparative ranking. The datasets are available for analysis at three levels: COUNTRY-level (166 observations); ELECTION-level (336 observations), and also EXPERT-level (3,821 observations). Each dataset can be downloaded in STATA, SPSS, CSV and EXCEL formats. (2019-04-28)
Documentation: You can download all data from EIP's Dataverse. The codebook discusses the technical methods and the variables. The annual report provides the descriptive results for each election. More information www.electoralintegrityproject.com
Release date: May 2019
Data from Dataverse (the files at country, election and expert levels and the codebook)
Democracy Cross-national Data, Release 4.0 Fall 2015
Description: This data-set facilitates comparisons of 193 contemporary states. It contains data on the social, economic and political characteristics of 193 nations with over 1000 variables.
Release date: August 2015
Democracy Time-series Data Release 3.0, January 2009
Description: This data-set is in a country-year case format, suitable for cross-national time-series analysis. It contains data on the social, economic and political characteristics of 191 nations with over 600 variables from 1971 to 2007. In particular, it merges the indicators of democracy by Freedom House, Vanhanen, Polity IV, and Cheibub and Gandhi, selected institutional classifications and also socioeconomic indicators. Note that you should check the original code-book for the definition and measurement of each of the variables. The period for each series also varies. This is the replication data-set used in the book, Driving Democracy.
Release date: January 2009
The Campaign Learning Experimental Study, 2001
Description: This is an experimental study by David Sanders and Pippa Norris designed to assess what people learn during the 2001 British election campaign from five different types of media (TV news, broadsheet newspapers, tabloid newspapers, party election broadcasts, and party websites).
Methods: The report summarizes the research design. To try the experiment before reading about their aims and design first complete the pre-test questionnaire, then read either the broadsheet newspaper compilation or browse the party website for about 30 minutes, then complete the post-test questionnaire. You can analyze your response by comparing the pre- and post-test questionnaires. An executive report posting the key results of the analysis will be posted here in summer. The experiments relate also to the 2001 British Election Study.
Release date: July 2001
The British Representation Study 2001
Description: This is the survey of all parliamentary candidates standing for the major British parties in the 2001 general election, directed by Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski. The project was administered at Birkbeck College, University of London and funded by the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School.
The data has been anonymized to preserve confidentiality and constituency-level data has been merged with the survey data.
Further surveys were conducted in the 2005 British general election by Dr Rosie Campbell at Birbeck College and in the 2010 British general election by Dr Wolfgang Rudig at Strathclyde University.
Release date: July 2001
BRS2001
The zipped folder containing all the following files:
Codebook
Data in downloadable SPSS portable format
Questionnaire
The British Representation Study 1997
Description: This presents the results of the survey of 1000 parliamentary candidates and MPS from all the major parties running in the 1997 British general election, directed by Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski.
Methods: The BRS includes data on the political attitudes and values, experience, and the social background of British politicians seeking elected office in the 1997 British general election. The survey was conducted using a mail survey.
Release Date: July 1997 BRS_1997
The zipped folder contains all the following files.
Codebook
Data in downloadable SPSS portable format
Questionnaire
Frequencies
The British Candidate Study 1992
Description: This data-set contains the results of the survey of Parliamentary Candidates and MPS from all major parties running in the 1992 British general election, directed by Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski.
Methods: The survey was conducted using a mail survey with replies from 1,676 respondents in all the major parties, (a 69% response rate). The series of surveys was subsequently continued in the 1997 and 2001 British Representation Studies (see above).
The code-book and questionnaire specify the contents. More details are available in Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski Political Recruitment (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
Release date: July 1995
BCS_1992
The zipped folder contains all the following files.
Codebook
Data in downloadable SPSS portable format
Questionnaire
British By-election Results 1945-2012
Description: This data-set contains the vote for each party and the change in the vote at constituency level for almost 500 by-elections in Britain from 1945 to May 2012.
Release date: 2012
Data in Excel format
British Gallup Opinion Polls 1945-2000
Description: This data-set contains the vote share of the major parties, and the change in the vote since the previous general election, recorded in the British monthly Gallup opinion polls 1945-2000.
Release date: 2000
Data in Excel format
The World Values Study
Link to www.worldvaluessurvey.org for more details and data, including the 6th wave dataset released in Spring 2014.
The 7th wave combined WVS/EVS covering 80-90 countries will be released in mid-2020.