Research Guides: Political Science 381: Introduction to Research Design: Data/Statistics

Additional Research Guides

L2 Historical Voter Dataset

L2 Historical Voter Data
Fill out a form to request access to L2 Historical Voter Data, a national voter file collected from the US states' and District of Columbia's administrative records. L2 cleans and normalizes the data and then adds additional modeled demographic and lifestyle variables.

This is a large dataset (almost 3TB total) of raw micro data

Tips for Finding and Using Data

When searching for data think about who would collect this data. Social Scientists? Government?
Pay attention to the data sources used in books and articles from your literature review.
- Did the authors deposit their research data?
- Even if they don't share their research data authors should cite the data they used, make use of those citations
When you find a relevant data set learn as much as you can about it.
- Read the codebook
- Read publications that used that data set and note how those researchers used the data
CSCAR supports researchers doing statistical analysis. They offer workshops and consultations that are available to undergraduates participating in faculty-directed research
The Clark Library can help you with data visualization and mapping tools
Cite the data set!

Social Science Data Archives

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) Data Archive This link opens in a new window
Archive of computerized, numeric social science data, including demography, economics, health care, politics, social behavior, and more.

Qualitative Data Repository
QDR curates, stores, preserves, publishes, and enables the download of digital data generated through qualitative and multi-method research in the social sciences. The repository develops and disseminates guidance for managing, sharing, citing, and reusing qualitative data, and contributes to the generation of common standards for doing so. QDR’s overarching goals are to make sharing qualitative data customary in the social sciences, to broaden access to social science data, and to strengthen qualitative and multi-method research.

Longitudinal Studies Measuring Opinions, Attitudes, Values

American National Election Studies (ANES)
Primary source for public opinion on elections, political participation, characteristics of voters, and for whom they voted. It also provides summary data on social, economic, partisanship, and public opinion, 1948 to present.
General Social Survey
The GSS contains a standard 'core' of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions, plus topics of special interest. Many of the core questions have remained unchanged since 1972 to facilitate time-trend studies as well as replication of earlier findings.
World Values Survey
"World Values Survey (WVS) is a global research project that explores people’s values and beliefs, their stability or change over time and their impact on social and political development of the societies in different countries of the world."

Election Studies

American National Election Studies (ANES)
Primary source for public opinion on elections, political participation, characteristics of voters, and for whom they voted, 1948-2016. It also provides summary data on social, economic, partisanship, and public opinion, 1948 to present.

Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES)
CSES is a collaborative program of research among election study teams from around the world. Participating countries include a common module of survey questions in their post-election studies.
Cooperative Election Study (CCES)
The CCES is a 30,000+ person national stratified sample survey administered by YouGov Polimetrix. Half of the questionnaire consists of Common Content asked of all 30,000+ people, and half of the questionnaire consists of Team Content designed by each individual participating team and asked of a subset of 1,000 people.
Comparative Candidate Survey (CCS)
A joint multi-national project with the goal of collecting data on candidates running for national parliamentary elections in different countries using a common core questionnaire to allow for cross-country comparison. Data collection comprises surveys among candidates as well as relevant context information concerning the constituency of the candidate and the political system at large.

For data on election results see the Elections Research Guide

Online Analysis Tools for GSS, ANES Datasets and CSES

Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) Archive
SDA provides web-based analysis of survey data including the General Social Survey (GSS), American national Election Study (ANES), and Current Population Survey.

Here's a Youtube video to help you get started using SDA.

Analyze CSES (Comparative Study of Electoral Systems) Online at GESIS

Political Agendas and Communication

Comparative Agendas Project
The Comparative Agendas Project collects and organizes data from archived sources to track policy outcomes across countries
Princeton Corpus of Political Emails
This corpus contains emails from candidates running for state and federal office, political parties, and other political organizations like PACs.

Speeches and Press Conferences

American Presidency Project
Provides speeches, executive orders, proclamations, inaugural addresses and even presidential debate and party platform information.

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Search within CQ Transcriptions for Congressional press conferences from 1995 to present
ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
Full text of Congressional Hearings and Congressional Record (near-verbatim transcript from the House and Senate floors)

CQ Roll Call
Member profiles includes speeches
Project VoteSmart
Large collection of public statements and press releases from public officials and candidates, both nationally and at the state level and for various offices.

US Statistics

The United States government produces a large amount of data. A list of agencies that compile statistics can be found here

Data.gov
It is US government portal for data including geospatial data. Provides descriptions of the Federal datasets (metadata), information about how to access the datasets, and tools that leverage government datastes.
Sage Data
Provides access to statistical information produced by U.S. Federal agencies, private companies, and intergovernmental organizations. Create maps and reports from data you select from over 640 datasets. Subjects include health, crime, population, finance, industry, and marketing.
ProQuest Statistical Insight
Formerly called LexisNexis Statistical, ProQuest Statistical Insight indexes and abstracts federal statistical publications since 1974, business and state government publications since 1980, and international agency publications since 1983. Provides links to full text of 15% of federal publications.
Historical Statistics of the United States
A compendium of statistics from over 1,000 sources. Contains more than 37,000 annual time series of quantitative historical information covering virtually every quantifiable dimension of American history: population, work and welfare, economic structure and performance, governance, and international relations, all from the earliest times to the present. Tables can be downloaded in Excel or CSV format.

US Census Data

Social Explorer is a great database for demographic data going back to 1790. See also the Research Guide on US Census Data

Demographic Data for US States, Counties, Cities and Census Tracts

Social Explorer
Social Explorer provides easy access to current and historical census data and demographic information about the United States, from 1790 to present. Create maps and reports based on decennial censuses of 1940 to 2010.

Sage Data This link opens in a new window
Create tables, charts and maps with wide range of variables using data from governments and private organizations. Subjects include health, crime, population, finance, industry, and marketing.

data.census.gov
data.census.gov is an online source for accessing population, housing, economic and geographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Users can create thematic maps from teh table view of a product.
more...less...
To creata a map, user must select at least 2 like geopgraphies (e.g. 2 or more states, or 2 or more counties) to map. Creat a Map tutorial is as follows: http://factfinder2.census.gov/help/en/tutorials/createmap_tut.htm.
County and City Data Book
1949 - 2007 in print and selected issues online. Census data on age, agriculture, births, business establishments, climate, construction, crime, deaths, earnings, education, elections, employment, finance, government, health, households, housing, income, labor force, manufactures, population, poverty, race and Hispanic origin, social services, and water use
Simply Analytics
Simply Analytics is a web-based mapping application that allows you to create thematic maps and reports using demographic, business and marketing data. Data can be downloaded for use with other software such as Excel and GIS.

Statistics by Region or Country

Cross National Time Series Data Set
CNTS is available as a downloadable spreadsheet of data covering many variables of interest to social scientists, especially those researching political conflicts and events. Data goes back to 1815 for some countries.
ProQuest Statistical Insight
Formerly called LexisNexis Statistical, ProQuest Statistical Insight indexes and abstracts federal statistical publications since 1974, business and state government publications since 1980, and international agency publications since 1983. Provides links to full text of 15% of federal publications.
Sage Data
Provides access to statistical information produced by U.S. Federal agencies, private companies, and intergovernmental organizations. Create maps and reports from data you select from over 640 datasets. Subjects include health, crime, population, finance, industry, and marketing.
UN Data
Statistics produced by countries and compiled by the United Nations data system, as well as estimates and projections. Covers agriculture, education, energy, industry, labour, national accounts, population and tourism. UM users only.
more...less...
Even though UNdata contains some trade data, it is not replacing COMTRADE. COMTRADE is a very comprehensive database for merchandise statistics containing around 1.5 billion trade records in 7 classifications up to 6 digit level of the Classification. UNdata contains only around 40 million trade records only in 2 digit HS 1992 classification and searchable only by reporters.
World Development Indicators (World Bank)
The World Bank eLibrary is the World Bank’s subscription-based collection of nearly 6,000 books, reports, journals, and working papers. Each article, book, and working paper is enriched with semantic and bibliographic metadata, including topics, regions, countries, abstracts and keywords using a controlled vocabulary. For public, elibrary permitted to search, view, and download all free publications within eLibrary. However, paid content is only available by UM users, so the pdfs will not appear for those publications.
more...less...
Publisher:
The World bank

Main Users:
Academics who are interested in agriculture and rural development, aid effectiveness, climate change, economic policy and external debt, education, energy and mining, environment, financial sector, gender, health, infrastructure, labor& social protection, poverty, private sector, public sector, science and technology, social development, urban development.

Contents
-By country
-By topic
-Indicators
-Data Catalog
-Microdata

Data Format:
EXCEL, CSV, PDF
OECD iLibrary
OECD iLibrary is one of the most comprehensive online resources on the world economy, society, and environment. It contains all books and working papers published by OECD since 1998, as well as a vast of collection of statistics, with data going back to the early 1960s and more than 80 countries covered. UM users only.
more...less...
Publisher:
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

Main Users:
Academics who are interested in the world economic, social, educational, en environmental issues such as agriculture and food, development, economics, education, employment, energy, environment, finance and investment, governance, industry and services, nuclear energy, science and technology, social issues, migration and health, taxation, trade, transport, and urban, rural, and regional development.

Contents

* Databases : OECD.Stat includes data and metadata for OECD countries and selected non-member economies. OECD.Stat enables users to search for and extract data from across many databases under different themes such as agriculture and fisheries, development, economic projections, education and training, energy, environment, finance, globalisation, health, national accounts, productivity, regional statistics, social and welfare, etc.

* Key Tables : The key tables by country statistical profiles include a wide range of indicators on economy, education, energy, environment, foreign aid, health, information and communication, labour, migration, R&D, trade and society. Historical data refer to the latest eight time periods.

Data Format:
WEB, PDF, and excel(XLS)
The citation tool is compatible with popular bibliographical reference software such as Endnote, RefManager, Procite and Refworks.
Global Development Finance
The data covers portions of World Bank’s investments, assets it manages on behalf of global funds, and the World banks’ own financial statements. Users can share visualizations they create through social media. Open to public.
(Caution:the datasets are raw and may not have been audited yet. For official data on the World Bank’s finances please refer to the bank’s Annual report and the Global Partnership and Trust Fund operations site. )
more...less...
Publisher:
The World bank

Main Users:
Students and faculties of Economics, Comparative/International Political Economies.

Contents

* Country Summaries : The list include current and former members, borrower, and donors of the World Bank. Key financial visualizations for the country, displaying fresh data straight from open data sets. The charts update every time the source data updates.

* World bank Summery : Key financial visualizations for the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA).

* Financial Intermediary Funds(FIFs) : FIFs represent a fast-growing business area fro the Bank, accounting for the majority of the Bank’s total trust fund portfolio. Many FIFs have been launched in the context of G7/G8 and G20 meetings. This page shows key financial visualizations for FIFs. The charts update every time the source data updates. This site contains four datasets on FIFs: Contributions, Funding Decisions, Commitments, and Cash Transfers. To explore and visualize detailed FIFs data, just access a source dataset.

* Financial Datasets : Please note that the data sets are raw and may not have been audited yet — our goal is to make raw data publicly available in open data format as soon as it is approved for public release through other channels. For official data on the Bank's finances please refer to our Annual Report and to the Global Partnership and Trust Fund Operations site.
Data Format:
CSV/ MS Excel XLS/MS Excel XLSX
XML/RDF/RSS/PDF
CIA World Factbook
Provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities.
more...less...
Publisher:
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Main Users:
Academics who are interested in the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for worldwide countries.

Contents

* The World Factbook

-World readers
- CIA Maps & Publications
- Historical Collection Publications

- Additional Publications

Health Statistics

Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
Provides easy access to demographic information about the United States, from 1790 to present. Create maps and reports.
SimplyAnalytics This link opens in a new window
Allows you to create thematic maps and reports using demographic, business and marketing data.

AHRQ Data Sources & Surveys
Data sources from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality - including the National Healthcare Disparities Report and data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUPnet).

PolicyMap This link opens in a new window
A US-National web-based Geographic Information System used to understand communities, for those who need to visualize large amounts of data quickly and easily, often down to the census tract or block group level.

Health Statistics Research Guide

Education Statistics

See also the Research Guide for Education Data page.

National Center for Education Statistics
Provides national education statistical data. Includes information on elementary and secondary school education, college and advanced degree programs.
OECD Education Statistics
Includes country level data on educational resources and attainment as well as data from two studies: the
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)

Statistcs on the Media

Pew Research Center: Journalism and Media

ProQuest Statistical Insight This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts statistical publications from international, US and state governments and businesses.
Statista This link opens in a new window
A portal for current statistics from private and government sources on wide range of topics.