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Here, I introduce a novel approach towards data collection for comparative research and present a new data infrastructure on parties, elections and governments, the Parliament and Government Composition Database (ParlGov). This data infrastructure combines a database, data presentation in webpages and software scripts in order to generate more dynamic datasets and to facilitate cooperation. So far, it includes information about more than 1000 parties, around 600 elections (national and European Parliament) and almost 1000 governments with their party composition. These observations are linked to a wide set of information about party positions and make it possible to derive various datasets for studies in political science. To provide a first glance into the potential of this new data infrastructure, I map the political space of the European Union (EU) by drawing on this source.

The ParlGov database (www.parlgov.org) that I introduce in this paper is based on joint work with Philip Manow, whom I wish to thank for his support. Our work on this infrastructure started at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG) from 2005 to 2007 and continued at the University of Konstanz from 2007 to 2009. At the European University Institute, my work on the project has been significantly enhanced through support by Mark Franklin, Peter Mair and Alexander Trechsel. In addition, I would like to thank Laurie Anderson, Fabio Franchino, Alexia Katsanidou, Alyson Price, Julia Sievers and Luca Verzichelli. ; Information on political institutions, data on parties, elections, and governments, has yet to be provided in a format which makes it easily accessible for empirical research. Contemporary data on political institutions is scattered, limited to some countries or time periods only and difficult to combine, so that quantitative studies of political institutions have no systematic data infrastructure available which is equivalent to survey research or OECD data. As a consequence, work on political institutions rests on very heterogeneous information sources and the quality of data does not match standards of replication for empirical research. Political scientists are in need of a modern replacement for data handbooks and recent technological innovations have broadened the opportunities to develop such an infrastructure within the political science community. I discuss existing approaches towards collaborative data collection in political science and highlight contemporary shortcomings. In the paper, I propose a novel approach towards data collection in comparative research and present a new data infrastructure on parties, elections and governments, the Parliament and Government Composition Database (ParlGov). The data infrastructure combines a database, data presentation in webpages and software scripts in order to generate more dynamic datasets. So far, it includes information about more than one thousand parties, around five hundred elections and almost one thousand governments. This infrastructure allows us to derive a wide range of datasets for studies in political science and can be easily extended. Hopefully, the paper will encourage rethinking about contemporary ways of collecting data on legislatures and executives.

Recent theoretical studies question the view that the European Commission is a preference outlier. This paper addresses this question by discussing the composition of the European College of Commissioners and by focusing on the appointment process. The analysis is based on a data set that contains biographical information for all Commissioners since 1958. The analysis highlights the importance of Commissioners' party affiliation and their previous political positions. Multivariate regression analysis shows that smaller member states have tended to send more high-ranking politicians to the College of Commissioners than have larger member states. However, party affiliation has not become more important as an appointment criterion. What has changed with time has been not the party link but the calibre of positions held by Commissioners before they are appointed to the College.

International audience ; Recent theoretical studies question the view that the European Commission is a preference outlier. This paper addresses this question by discussing the composition of the European College of Commissioners and by focusing on the appointment process. The analysis is based on a data set that contains biographical information for all Commissioners since 1958. The analysis highlights the importance of Commissioners' party affiliation and their previous political positions. Multivariate regression analysis shows that smaller member states have tended to send more high-ranking politicians to the College of Commissioners than have larger member states. However, party affiliation has not become more important as an appointment criterion. What has changed with time has been not the party link but the calibre of positions held by Commissioners before they are appointed to the College.

Recent theoretical studies question the view that the European Commission is a preference outlier. This paper addresses this question by discussing the composition of the European College of Commissioners and by focusing on the appointment process. The analysis is based on a data set that contains biographical information for all Commissioners since 1958. The analysis highlights the importance of Commissioners' party affiliation and their previous political positions. Multivariate regression analysis shows that smaller member states have tended to send more high-ranking politicians to the College of Commissioners than have larger member states. However, party affiliation has not become more important as an appointment criterion. What has changed with time has been not the party link but the calibre of positions held by Commissioners before they are appointed to the College.

Recent theoretical studies question the view that the European Commission is a preference outlier. This paper addresses this question by discussing the composition of the European College of Commissioners and by focusing on the appointment process. The analysis is based on a dataset that contains biographical information for all commissioners since 1958. The analysis highlights the importance of commissioners? party affi liation and their former political positions. Multivariate regression analysis shows that smaller member states have tended to send more high-ranking politicians to the College of Commissioners than larger member states. However, party affi liation has not become more important as an appointment criterion. What has changed with time has not been the party link but the caliber of positions held by commissioners before they are appointed to the College. ; Neuere theoretische Ansätze bezweifeln, dass die Interessen der Europäischen Kommission stark von den Interessen anderer Institutionen der Europäischen Union abweichen. Im vorliegenden Papier wird diese Frage mittels einer Analyse der Zusammensetzung des Kollegiums der Kommissare empirisch untersucht. Als Basis für die Untersuchung wird ein Datensatz verwendet, der biografische Daten aller Kommissare seit 1958 umfasst. Die Analyse vergleicht die Parteizugehörigkeit und die früheren politischen Ämter der Kommissare. Unter Verwendung multivariater statistischer Verfahren wird gezeigt, dass sich das Delegationsverhalten kleiner und großer EU-Mitgliedstaaten unterscheidet. Entgegen einer oftmals geäußerten Annahme ist die Parteizugehörigkeit kein wichtigeres Kriterium bei der Auswahl der Kommissare geworden. Vielmehr deutet eine Veränderung der früheren Positionen der Kommissare auf eine zunehmende politische Rolle des Kollegiums der Kommissare. Waren Kommissare zunächst hauptsächlich Ministerialbeamte, so sind es jetzt fast ausschließlich Berufspolitiker.

Voters who participate in elections to the European Parliament tend to use these elections to punish their domestic governing parties. Many students of the EU therefore claim that the party-political composition of the Parliament should systematically differ from that of the Council. This study, which compares empirically the party-political centers of gravity of these two central political actors, shows that opposed majorities between Council and Parliament may have other than simply electoral causes. The logic of domestic government formation works against the representation of politically more extreme parties, and hence against more EU-skeptic parties in the Council. At the same time, voters in EP elections vote more often for these more extreme and more EU-skeptic parties. The different locations of Council and Parliament in the pro-/contra-EU dimension may thus be caused by two - possibly interrelated - effects: a mechanical effect, due to the translation of votes into seats and then into 'office', and thus also into Council representation, and an electoral effect in elections to the European Parliament. The paper discusses the implications of this finding for our understanding of the political system of the EU and of its democratic legitimacy.

AbstractWe develop a new measure of party position based on a scaling of ideology tags supplied in infoboxes on political parties' Wikipedia pages. Assuming a simple model of tag assignment, we estimate the locations of parties and ideologies in a common space. We find that the recovered scale can be interpreted in familiar terms of "left versus right." Estimated party positions correlate well with ratings of parties' positions from extant large-scale expert surveys, most strongly with ratings of general left–right ideology. Party position estimates also show high stability in a test–retest scenario. Our results demonstrate that a Wikipedia-based approach yields valid and reliable left–right scores comparable to scores obtained via conventional expert coding methods. It thus provides a measure with potentially unlimited party coverage. Our measurement strategy is also applicable beyond Wikipedia.

ZusammenfassungDie Datengrundlage in der Politikwissenschaft hat sich in den letzten Jahren stark verändert und ist breiter geworden. Daten sozialer Medien und digitale Spurendaten erweitern das Methodenportfolio in den Sozialwissenschaften beträchtlich. In diesem Artikel diskutieren wir Herausforderungen und Chancen dieser neuen Entwicklungen für die quantitative Methodenlehre in der Politikwissenschaft. Wir argumentieren, dass die Methodenlehre (i) stärker an Theorie und Inhalt geknüpft werden sollte. Dies erfolgt am besten durch (ii) Projektseminare, welche Studierende eigene Forschungsvorhaben umsetzen lassen. Mit der leichten Generierung durch neue Datenquellen, können Studierende (iii) den gesamten Forschungsprozess durchlaufen. Geringere Teile der Lehre werden als Präsenzveranstaltung abgehalten, (iv) Programmierfähigkeiten werden durch E‑Lernangebote ergänzt. Durch die hohe Praxisorientierung und eigene Lerntempi kann so ein Interesse für quantitative Methoden bei mehr Studierenden der Politikwissenschaft gebildet werden.

Here, we present Party Facts (www.partyfacts.org), a modern online database of political parties worldwide. With this project, we provide a comprehensive database of political parties across time and world regions, link party information from some of the core social science data sets, and offer a platform to link political parties across data sets. An initial list of 4000 core parties in 212 countries is mainly based on four major data sets. The core parties in Party Facts are linked with party information from some of the key social science data sets, currently 26. From these data sets, we have included and linked about 15,000 party observations. Party Facts is an important step in developing a more coherent operationalization of political parties across time and space and a gateway to existing data sets on political parties. It allows answering innovative party research questions that require the combination of multiple data sets.