EUI Library Electoral and Parliamentary Data Directory now expanded

Results of the 2014 European Parliament elections are posted at this link. The EUI Library has expanded its Electoral Data Directory which now includes 13 major international resources: European Election Studies (EES/GESIS); European Election Database (NSSDS); Constituency-Level Elections Archive (CPS); EUDO data on European democracy (EUI); Electoral data archive (ICPSR); Parliament and Government Composition Database (Bremen); Chapel Hill Expert Surveys; Manifesto Project Database (WZB); Inter-Parliamentary Union data (IPU); Psephos (Melbourne); Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CPS/GESIS); Political Data Yearbook interactive (ECPR) and the Campaign Finance Database (DIME/Stanford). Full details and access to data.

 European Election Studies: The GESIS social science data archive provides  access to all European Election Studies related special Eurobarometer surveys since 1979. European Election Studies cover participation and voting behaviour in European Parliament elections, and include topics such as “the evolution of a political community and public sphere in the European Union, citizens’ perceptions of and preferences about the EU political regime, and the evaluation its political performance.” There are five study categories: European Election Studies (EES and other voter studies); Political Elite studies in the EES context (and beyond); Euromanifesto studies; Media studies, and Further Eurobarometer on European Elections.

The European Election Database provides observations on over 400 elections and referenda in 35 countries since 1990. The database is elaborated by the Norwegian Social Science Data Service which collates data from national authorities and statistical agencies. Interactive maps, graphs and tables facilitate pan-European comparative research on: parliamentary elections, presidential elections, European Parliamentary elections and EU-related referenda. A geo-chronological matrix of electoral events is on this EED page. The NSD software support page is at this link.

The Constituency-Level Elections Archive (CLEA) contains election results for 85 countries worldwide. Register online to access the data in zipped files, with PDF documentation. The database provides results “at the constituency level for lower house legislative elections from around the world.” First-time users should register on this CLEA page.

EUDO data on European democracy is an EUI project under the overall direction of Prof. Alexander Trechsel, Head of the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the EUI. In advance of the 2014 European Parliament elections, EUDO has launched an online voting advice application called EUandI.  Public-version data from EUandI will be available later in the year. EUDO data are generated from four project observatories: The Observatory on Public Opinion, Political Elites and the Media; The Observatory on Political Parties and Representation; The Observatory on Institutional Change and Reform and The Observatory on Citizenship.

ICPSR electoral data archive: EUI members have access to diverse international election data from the ICPSR data archive. The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) data archive is a large-scale repository of approximately 500,000 files, hosted by the University of Michigan. Use the ICPSR catalogue to locate study numbers. Downloading is by the Information Specialist, see Library resource page for full details.

The Parliament and Government Composition Database (ParlGov, University of Bremen) contains data on elections and governments for all EU and most OECD countries since 1945. “The database combines approximately 1400 parties, 680 elections with 5800 election results and 2300 governing parties in 960 cabinets.” There are four data categories: (i) primary data: coded information (database tables); (ii) secondary data: virtual tables (database views based on primary data); (iii) external data: data sets linked to ParlGov (merge tables) and (iv) calculated data: calculated parameters from software (R and Stata) scripts.

Chapel Hill Expert Surveys (CHES) provide estimates of political party positions on “European integration, ideology and policy issues for national parties in a variety of European countries. The first survey was conducted in 1999, with subsequent waves in 2002, 2006, 2010. The number of countries increased from 14 Western European countries in 1999 to 24 current or prospective EU members in 2006 and 2010, and the number of national parties from 143 to 237. The 2010 survey also includes parties in Croatia, Norway, Switzerland, and Turkey.”

The Manifesto Project Database (WZB, Berlin) contains data and documents for measuring the policy preferences and programmes of political parties. “The project is based on quantitative content analyses of parties’ election programmes from more than 50 countries covering all free, democratic elections since 1945.”

The Inter-Parliamentary Union Parline database on national parliaments contains information on the structure and working methods of 266 parliamentary chambers in 188 countries. A glossary provides an overview of the structure of each parliament.

The Psephos election database is an election data site curated by Dr Adam Carr, providing global election coverage, constituency maps and a calendar of forthcoming elections.

The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) is a collaborative programme of cross-national electoral research conducted in over fifty states and coordinated by the Center for Political Studies and GESIS. CSES is composed of three parts: “First, a common module of public opinion survey questions is included in each participant country’s post-election study. These ‘micro’ level data include vote choice, candidate and party evaluations, current and retrospective economic evaluations, evaluation of the electoral system itself, in addition to standardized sociodemographic measures. Second, district level data are reported for each respondent, including electoral returns, turnout, and the number of candidates. Finally, system or ‘macro’ level data report aggregate electoral returns, electoral rules and formulas, and regime characteristics.”

Political Data Yearbook interactive provides data on elections, national referenda, changes in government, and institutional reforms in the European Union and eight non-EU countries since 1992. The Yearbook is published by Wiley on behalf of the European Consortium for Political Research.

The Database on Ideology, Money in Politics and Elections (DIME), developed at Stanford University, includes records “for over 100 million political contributions made by individuals and organizations to [U.S.] local, state, and federal elections spanning a period from 1979 to 2012.” Data files and documentation are available at this link.