COMPARATIVE POLITICAL DATA SET

Klaus Armingeon, Sarah Engler, Lucas Leemann and David Weisstanner | University of Zurich, Leuphana University and University of Lucerne

HOME
DATA
ARCHIVE
TEAM & FEEDBACK
LINKS & SOURCES

Home


Welcome!

The „Comparative Political Data Set“ (CPDS) is a collection of political and institutional country-level data provided by Klaus Armingeon, Sarah Engler, Lucas Leemann, and David Weisstanner at the University of Zurich (Switzerland), the Leuphana Universität (Germany), and the University of Lucerne (Switzerland). It consists of annual data for 36 democratic countries for the period of 1960 to 2023 or since their transition to democracy.

The present data set combines and replaces the earlier versions “Comparative Political Data Set I” (data for 23 OECD countries from 1960 onwards) and the “Comparative Political Data Set III” (data for 36 OECD and/or EU member states from 1990 onwards). A variable has been added to identify former CPDS I countries.

In addition, the „Supplement to the Comparative Political Data Set – Government Composition 1960-2023“ provides detailed information on party composition, reshuffles, duration, reason for termination and the type of government for 36 OECD and/or EU-member countries.

The data set contains some additional economic, socio-economic and demographic variables. However, these variables are not the major concern of the project and are thus limited in scope. For more in-depth sources of these data, see the online databases of the OECD, Eurostat or AMECO. The CPDS is suited for cross-national, longitudinal and pooled time-series analyses.

CPDS offers a new R-code and merging documents that allow connecting CPDS with data from other datasets, namely Chapel Hill Expert Survey and the Comparative Manifesto Project. The first code-file connects individual parties contained in the three datasets. The second file allows users to choose variables from either CHES or CMP on party characteristics and calculates scores weighted by party distributions in parliaments and governments contained in CPDS. Therewith, the code and accompanying documents provide a starting point for leveraging the strengths of the individual efforts of data collection.

More information on the code and scores can be found here.


News / latest updates


Citation (please refer to the respective data set as follows)

Armingeon, Klaus, Sarah Engler, Lucas Leemann and David Weisstanner. 2025.
Comparative Political Data Set 1960-2023.
Zurich/Lueneburg/Lucerne: University of Zurich, Leuphana University Lueneburg, and University of Lucerne.

Armingeon, Klaus, Sarah Engler, Lucas Leemann and David Weisstanner. 2025.
Supplement to the Comparative Political Data Set – Government Composition 1960-2023.
Zurich/Lueneburg/Lucerne: University of Zurich, Leuphana University Lueneburg, and University of Lucerne.

Odermatt, Angela. 2025.
CPDS – CHES – CMP Data Connection 1960-2023.
Princeton: Princeton University.


Coverage

  • Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom & USA: 1960-2023
  • Greece: 1960-1967, 1974-2023
  • Malta: 1966-2023
  • Portugal & Cyprus: 1976-2023
  • Spain: 1977-2023
  • Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania & Slovakia: 1990-2023
  • Poland: 1991-2023
  • Estonia & Lithuania: 1992-2023
  • Latvia & Slovenia: 1993-2023
  • Croatia: 2000-2023