Data – Political

Find below, data on Polities, Policies and Politics:

POLITIES– Political System and Institutions

• Database of Political Institutions 2009 (Updated 2010) – from the World Bank
• Democracy Times Series Data –data on the social, economic and political characteristics of 190 countries with over 700 variables from 1971 to 2007. It merges the indicators of democracy by Freedom House, Vanhanen, Polity IV, and Cheibub and Gandhi, plus selected institutional classifications and also socio-economic indicators from the World Bank.
• The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project – Data selection and full data
• Quality of Government Data – by the University of Gothenburg
• World Justice Project – Rule of Law Index
• Parline database on National Parliaments – from the Inter Parliamentary (IPU)
• European Election Database – from the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD)
• British Local Election Database, 1889-2003 – from the University of Plymouth
• Electoral Results and  Statistics for Portugal – from the Technical Secretariat for the Electoral Process of the Internal Administration Ministry (akin to the UK’s Home office)

POLICIES – Tax (Rates), Expenditure, Debt, Deficit and Regulations

• “Despesa Publica” (“Public Expenditure”) – A Portuguese website that posts national government expenditure from all levels (central, local, administrative, business, charity,etc)
• EU – Public Finances in EMU Reports
• EU -General Government Data – The data, Cyclical Adjustment of Budget Balances
• OECD – Tax Rate Database
• EU – Tax and benefits indicators database
• OECD -Intergovernmental Transfers Data – Good for Fiscal Federalism
• EU – Fiscal Governance in the EU member states – Numerical Fiscal Rules (data here), Independent Fiscal Institutions (data here), Medium-Term Budgetary Framework (data here)
• ILO – Law (EPLex, Occupational Health & Safety), LABORSTA, Labour Force Surveys, NATLEX, Social Security Worldwide (SSW)
• The Luxembourg Income Study Cross-National Data Center – The Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database, the Luxembourg Wealth Study Database, and Other Welfare State and Social Policy data sets
• Doing Business Country profiles and Data – Ease of doing business information
• Global Competitiveness Index
• Financial Standards Foundation – Country Profiles,  Country Briefs, Rankings
• European Observatory on Health systems and Policies – Country Profiles, Policy Briefs (best practices) and other assorted publications
• Pension Funds Online – Data and Country Profiles
• European Mortgage Federation

POLITICS – Surveys & Perceptions

• Eurobarometer – Standard Reports, Special Surveys, Flash Report, Qualitative Studies, Topical Public Opinion Surveys (Opinion Surveyor of the EU)
• Transparency International – Corruption Perceptions Index, Global Corruption Barometer, Bribe Payers Index
• Freedom House – Freedom of the Press Historical data, Freedom in the World Comparative and Historical Data, Map of Freedom,
• Control Risks – RiskMap ( rather good for commodities, particularly oil)
• Collection of Voting intention Polls – Covers Australia, Belgium (Wallonia & Flanders), Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and UK.
• Private Surveyors – Portugal (Marktest, Intercampus, CESOP ), UK (ICM Research), Germany (infratest-dimap), Spain (CIS), France (sondages en France), Italy (termometro politico), Greece (MRB)