Paul Hensel's International Political Data Page

Political Systems / Regime Type

My Foreign Governments and Politics page may also provide relevant information or data.

Polity IV Data Archive: The official site for distribution of Ted Gurr, et al.'s Polity data sets, currently updated through 1999 under the name Polity IV; these are the most commonly used source of systematic information on each country's political structures since the year 1800. The data and codebook are available in a variety of commonly used formats, but now -- as of Polity IV -- require each prospective user to register with the project before obtaining the data.

Spatial-Temporal Domain: Entire world, 1800-1998
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)

Polity 3D Data (an expansion of the Polity III data that gives the exact timing of polity changes, rather than relying on yearly reports; the preceding link downloads a zipped file including the data and documentation in multiple formats. This data set was introduced in Sara McLaughlin, Scott Gates, Havard Hegre, Ranveig Gissinger, and Nils Petter Gleditsch (1998), "Polity 3D: The timing of polity changes," JCR forthcoming; a preliminary version of that article is available on-line in Acrobat format with permission of the editor. If you do not wish to download the entire zipped file, you may download separate ASCII versions of the data, source notes, codebook, and memo on coding sources; other data and paper formats are also available at the same FTP site.)

Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
Variables Included: (list forthcoming)

Kristian Gleditsch's Modified Polity Data (the basic Polity data modified for consistency with other international relations data sets, by removing Polity entries for entities that do not qualify as states, and by adding Polity entries for some recognized states that were not originally included.)

Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
Variables Included: (list forthcoming)

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)

Ray's Thresholds of Democracy (RTOD) data (see also the readme file)

Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
Variables Included: (list forthcoming)

Tatu Vanhanen's Polyarchy Data Archive (this is apparently a temporary site -- please see an alternative page at the JPR web site if you are unable to reach this one. You may download the data in CSV format; several other formats are available at this data archive)

Spatial-Temporal Domain: 187 countries, 1820-1998
Variables Included: Vanhanen's country number, year, competition, participation, democracy index, COW state name abbreviation and country number

Bruce Russett's (et al.) Democratic Peace Replication Archive provides access to data used in a number of recent studies on the democratic/liberal peace.

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 Data on Political Rights and Civil Liberties (in PDF format)

Spatial-Temporal Domain: all independent countries, 1972-72 to 1998-99
Variables Included: Political rights (1-7 scale), civil liberties (1-7 scale), overall freedom rating (free-partly free-not free)

Freedom House's 1999 Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties (see especially the survey's tables of freedom in countries, related territories, disputed territories; combined average ratings for countries, related and disputed territories; lists of types of political systems [presidential, parliamentary, etc.] for electoral democracies; socioeconomic figures [GDP per capita and life expectancy] for countries; and individual reports on countries and related and disputed territories and the Map of Freedom)

Spatial-Temporal Domain: Current year
Variables Included: Political rights (1-7 scale), civil liberties (1-7 scale), overall freedom rating (free-partly free-not free)

Freedom House's 1999 Press Freedom Survey (see especially the survey's tables and charts and country reports)

Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
Variables Included: (list forthcoming)

Press Freedom Data (from Doug Van Belle; the data are not currently available online, 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)

Political Leadership

My Foreign Governments and Politics page may also provide relevant information or data.

Bueno de Mesquita and Siverson's Heads of State Data (see also their codebook and readme file)

Spatial-Temporal Domain: (list forthcoming)
Variables Included: (list forthcoming)

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 (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 1946-1986 (one of many useful lists available in Robert Ortiz de Zarate's Political Collections; see also lists of current world leaders, recent reliefs and reelections, assassinated leaders, contemporary female leaders, European governments since 1990, and first African leaders after independence)

Spatial-Temporal Domain: entire world, 1946-present
Variables Included: country, office held (e.g., president or prime minister), leader name, years in office

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; you may also download a zipped copy of the data and documentation directly. Eric and Richard Tucker are currently revising and extending this data set; a draft of their codebook is available in Postscript format)

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.

Links to Web Sites on National Parliaments