Data and Data Sets

Data; Data Sets; Political Institutions; Comparative Politics; Methodology; Political Science

How to keep track of the tons of political science data sets—and how to make informed data selection choices in own’s research, given the ever-growing availability of off-the-shelf data sets? With the rise of the ‘Open Government Data’ movement and the community’s strong commitment to openly share data, researchers encounter new challenges in navigating the plethora of political science data sets. This chapter aims to assist researchers in making informed data selection, helping them identify data sets specifically tailored to the comparative study of political institutions. It first introduces the ‘PolData’ repository, i.e. meta-collection of political data sets. Following that, it provides brief data set profiles of a carefully curated selection of 13 particularly relevant data sets for the comparative study of political institutions. The chapter serves as a resource to help readers leverage available data resources and embark on their research endeavours efficiently.