From “Nikolay Marinov”:http://www.nikolaymarinov.com and “Susan Hyde”:http://hyde.research.yale.edu/research.htm comes the following announcement of a new data set:
bq. We are pleased to announce open access to the full National Election Across Democracy and Autocracy (NELDA) data set. The central objective of the NELDA data is to introduce a comprehensive and flexible election-level data set, including a unique and informative identifying variable for every separate election event (the electionid). The electionid can be used to collapse election-event data into the appropriate unit of analysis (depending on the research question), to evaluate distance to the nearest election event, or to separate and analyze elections by type (executive, legislative, or general). By avoiding a country-year structure, NELDA allows for election-related variation within country-years.
bq. NELDA also includes more than 50 substantive variables primarily focused on the existence of competition, irregularities in the electoral process, foreign involvement in elections, and other characteristics of elections that tend to vary between democracies and autocracies. These data have many possible uses. For example, within IR, the NELDA data have been used as an indicator of which regimes face the possibility of an electoral threat. With comparative politics, the NELDA data can be used to define the universe of elections in which, for example, the incumbent ran, the opposition was harassed, or there were concerns before the election that it would not be free and fair.
bq. The current release (version 1.0) contains detailed data on election events from 1960-2006 in 158 countries. For seventeen long-term consolidated democracies, only election dates are included. Micro-states (population < 500,000) are not included. Coding of 1945-1959 is in progress, and planned updates include 2007-2010. "Click here to download the data":http://hyde.research.yale.edu/nelda/#contact, where you will also be asked to fill out a form. Those using the data are requested to cite Susan D. Hyde and Nikolay Marinov. "National Elections Across Democracy and Autocracy: Which Elections Can Be Lost?" Manuscript, Yale University, 2010. Examples of how the data have been used in Marinov's and Hyde's research include Daniel Corstange and Nikolay Marinov. "When Elections Turn Proxy Wars: Evidence of Partisan Polarization from a Survey Experiment in Lebanon":http://www.nikolaymarinov.com Daniel Corstange and Nikolay Marinov. "Who is Alienated When Foreigners Subvert Democracy? Citizens and Partisans in the 2009 Lebanese Parliamentary Election.":http://www.nikolaymarinov.com Hein Goemans and Nikolay Marinov. "The Rise of the Guardian Coup: The International Community and the Seizure of Executive Power.":http://www.nikolaymarinov.com Brandon Kinne and Nikolay Marinov. "Neither Hawks Nor Doves: Audience Costs in Electoral Authoritarian Regimes.":http://www.nikolaymarinov.com Emilie Hafner-Burton, Susan D. Hyde, and Ryan Jablonski. "Terrorizing Freedom: When Governments Use Repression to Manipulate Elections":http://hyde.research.yale.edu/research.htm Susan D. Hyde and Angela O'Mahony. "International Scrutiny and Pre-Electoral Fiscal Manipulation." 2010. Journal of Politics. Susan D. Hyde. "International Dimensions of Elections.":http://hyde.research.yale.edu/research.htm Forthcoming in Dynamics of Democratization, Edited by Nathan Brown. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press Susan D. Hyde. The Pseudo-Democrat's Dilemma: Why Election Monitoring Became an International Norm. Forthcoming from Cornell University Press. Susan D. Hyde and Nikolay Marinov. "Does Information Facilitate Self-Enforcing Democracy?":http://hyde.research.yale.edu/research.htm