POLS 365: Political Data Analysis

The American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files show the full range of population and housing unit responses collected on individual ACS questionnaires.

From the US Census Bureau, this site gives you data down to the zip code about the population from the last census.

Statistical Data from the United States Census Bureau

Data USA is a platform built on public U.S. Government data where you can conduct your own analyses and create stories. It is a collaboration between Deloitte, Collective Learning, Datawheel, and D3plus.

The Distressed Communities Index (DCI) is a tool for measuring the vitality of U.S. communities. This 2017 report examines place-based disparities in
the American economic experience and assesses the relationship between them and a host of other important factors, such as health outcomes, public
assistance spending, demographics, and educational attainment.

Published by the Cato Institute and accompanied by demographic and economic data on each state, Freedom in the 50 States ranks states on the basis of how their policies promote freedom in the fiscal, regulatory, and personal realms.

Measure of America provides easy-to-use yet methodologically sound tools for understanding the distribution of well-being and opportunity in America and stimulating fact-based dialogue about issues we all care about: health, education, and living standards.

NationMaster was founded by Luke Metcalfe in 2003 as a project that improved on the CIA World Factbook by providing context, comparing countries side by side and calculating everything per capita.

An article from CityLab with visualizations adapted from the book The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class—and What We Can Do About It.

Easy-to-use online mapping with data on demographics, real estate, health, jobs and more in communities across the US. Sign up to start making maps, tables and reports in minutes.

Data on taxes in the US (state-level information)

The United States Elections Project is an information source for the United States electoral system. The mission of the project is to provide timely and accurate election statistics, electoral laws, research reports, and other useful information regarding the United States electoral system. By providing this information, the project seeks to inform the people of the United States on how their electoral system works, how it may be improved, and how they can participate in it.

The Foreign Aid Explorer shows the multi-dimensional picture of U.S. foreign assistance through a highly visual and interactive website. The website makes it easy for all users to find and retrieve the data they need. For the casual user, there are interactive maps and graphics that clearly lay out the details of foreign aid, allowing users to explore foreign aid data across countries, sectors, and over time. More advanced users can quickly download their desired data using our data query tools or by selecting from a choice of prepared files.

Overall ‘well-being’ in U.S. states from Gallup-Sharecare.

Impunity is the exercise of power without accountability, which becomes, in its starkest form, the commission of crimes without punishment. The Atlas of Impunity is a quantitative assessment of this holistic definition of impunity, measured by independent indicators across five sites in society. These dimensions include unaccountable governance, human rights abuse, conflict and violence, economic exploitation, and environmental degradation.

The BTI measures the current state of democracy and market economy in a given country, its evolution over the past two years and the quality of governance performed by its leadership.

COW seeks to facilitate the collection, dissemination, and use of accurate and reliable quantitative data in international relations. Advisory board convenes at the meetings of International Studies Association and Peace Science Society (International).

The index, which ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople, uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

The starting point for the Democracy Barometer is the premise that a democratic system tries to establish a good balance between the normative, interdependent values of freedom and equality and that this requires control. Freedom, Control and Equality are further subdivided into individual liberties, rule of law, public sphere; competition, mutual constraints governmental capability; and transparency, participation, and representation, respectively.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide for 165 independent states and two territories—this covers almost the entire population of the world and the vast majority of the world’s states.

Political indicators: levels of civil and political rights. Proxy for levels of democracy. Covers most countries in the world. It goes back several decades and it is compiled annually. Tips: Under Signature Reports, select a year. Explore map to view index data by country, click to view detailed report.

The Fragile States Index (FSI) produced by The Fund for Peace (FFP), highlights pertinent vulnerabilities which contribute to the risk of state fragility. It makes political risk assessment and early warning of conflict accessible to policy-makers and the public at large.

Compare global rankings from 2008-2015 in interactive graphs, maps, and charts. From the Democracy Ranking Association, Vienna, Austria.

The twelfth edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI) ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness. This index is produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).

The Global State of Democracy indices (GSoD indices) depict democratic trends at the country, regional and global levels across a broad range of different attributes of democracy in the period 1975–2015.

Parline is the reference point for authoritative data on the parliaments of the world. It comprises 600+ data points for every country where there is a functioning parliament. Parline is produced with the cooperation of national parliaments, who provide and check the data through a network of Parline Correspodents.

The focus of CSP research is on the dynamics of and opportunities for Managing Complexity in Modern Societal-Systems and the real possibilities for a global systemic peace, that is, minimizing the resort to and the effects of political violence in the world as a whole.

Crime and violence statistics for countries around the world.

V-Dem Graphing Tools is a platform for data visualization. V-Dem Institute is located in the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project reports aggregate and individual governance indicators for over 200 countries and territories over the period 1996–2015, for six dimensions of governance: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption.

The Electoral Integrity Project is an independent academic project based at Harvard University and the University of Sydney. EIP has sought to produce innovative and policy-relevant scientific research that achieves international standing in the social sciences and leads to a significant advancement of capabilities and knowledge about elections, democracy, and autocracy.

ElectionGuide is provided by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), an international nonprofit dedicated to strengthening electoral democracy. Launched in 1998 through a grant from USAID. It provides content on: National elections around the world; Subnational elections of high interest; Political parties and candidates; Referendum provisions; News on election-related laws and developments around the world; Political institutions and electoral systems; Election results and voter turnout.

Election results and information about electoral systems from countries. You can also find information on other aspects related to elections (quotas for women and civic education programs).

Data and visualizations of global indicators. Gapminder is an independent Swedish foundation with no political, religious or economic affiliations. Gapminder is a fact tank, not a think tank. Gapminder fights devastating misconceptions about global development.

This link will take you to all reports from the World Economic Forum. Scroll to the Global Competitiveness Report. Featuring the new Global Competitiveness Index 4.0, the Report assesses the competitiveness landscape of 140 economies, providing unique insight into the drivers of economic growth in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

From the Heritage Foundation. The Index of Economic Freedom measures global free markets with 12 factors: Rule of Law (property rights, government integrity, judicial effectiveness); Government Size (government spending, tax burden, fiscal health); Regulatory Efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom); Open Markets (trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom).

The KOF Globalisation Index measures the economic, social and political dimensions of globalization. From the ETH KOF Swiss Economic Institute.

Overall prosperity of countries. This site does not provide a composite index for countries, just the ranking and individual indexes for categories.

BCG’s Sustainable Economic Development Assessment (SEDA) is a proprietary diagnostic tool that gives countries insight into their overall social and economic conditions.

DataBank is an analysis and visualization tool that contains collections of time series data on a variety of topics. You can create your own queries; generate tables, charts, and maps; and easily save, embed, and share them.

Showcases data-driven advocacy on gender equality issues across the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Explore now the state of gender equality across 129 countries covering 95% of the world's girls and women.

Gender equality indicator: it measures gender inequality in 134 countries in the world.

An infographic of data from The Economist on Environment for Working Women internationally - please see also related - The best and worst places to be a working woman: https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/03/daily-chart-0?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/thebestandworstplacestobeaworkingwoman

This is the link to the 2019 infographic. For full access to The Economist, click this link, then click Proquest Research Library, and log in with your WSU ID and password if prompted.

The Leadership Index shows us where women are in governments around the world, how much power they hold and how they got to their positions of leadership. We explore the data through three pillars – pathways, positions and power – to understand the correlations between different variables, decisions and policies and how those decisions ultimately affect how much power women hold in public office. The Leadership Index focuses on positions across the five sectors of government: executive, legislative, judiciary, civil service and security — and also from the national to local levels.

The CIRI Human Rights Dataset contains standards-based quantitative information on government respect for 15 internationally recognized human rights for 202 countries, annually from 1981-2011.

Educational attainment by country.

A new global ranking of governments based on what they are doing to tackle the gap between rich and poor

"Covering 199 countries and territories the Global Corruption Index (GCI) provides a comprehensive overview of the state of corruption around the world based on 28 variables."

The Global Retirement Index (GRI) is a multi-dimensional index developed by Natixis Global Asset Management and Core Data Research to examine the factors that drive retirement security and to provide a comparison tool for best practices in retirement policy.

Socio-economic indicators: measures the quality of life in terms of health, education and income in all countries in the world. It has been compiled since 20 years ago and is produced annually.

The Social Progress Index is an aggregate index of social and environmental indicators that capture three dimensions of social progress: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing, and Opportunity. The 2017 Social Progress Index includes data from 128 countries on 50 indicators.

Scroll down for most recent report. Links to previous reports available from there. This report "highlight[s] specific steps each government can take to protect victims of human trafficking, prevent trafficking crimes, and prosecute traffickers in the United States and around the world. The findings in this report help inform policymakers, law enforcement, and civil society on gaps and areas of concern, as well as serve as a roadmap forward to end the scourge." Why this report matters, from the Washington Post.

Shows at a glance which countries are facilitating travel for citizens of other countries and how: whether they allow people to travel to their country without a visa, if travellers can get a visa on arrival in the country or if visitors need to get a visa before travel.

The 2020 EPI provides a quantitative basis for comparing, analyzing, and understanding environmental performance for 180 countries.

The Fraser Institute produces research about government actions in areas that deeply affect Canadians’ quality of life such as taxation, health care, aboriginal issues, education, economic freedom, energy, natural resources and the environment.

Country studies for business based on five indicators: Power Distance Index (PDI), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), and Long-Term Orientation (LTO). A critique of Hofstede's methodology by Dr. Brendan McSweeney has been published here (click).

The Global Organized Crime Index is a multi-dimensional tool that assesses the level of criminality and resilience to organized crime for 193 countries along three key pillars – criminal markets, criminal actors, and resilience. Developed over a two-year period, the Index draws from both quantitative and qualitative sources and is underpinned by over 350 expert assessments and evaluations by the GI-TOC’s regional observatories.

The Good Country Index exists to measure what each country on earth contributes to the common good of humanity, and what it takes away, relative to its size. Using a wide range of data from the U.N. and other international organisations, we’ve given each country a balance-sheet to show at a glance whether it’s a net creditor to mankind, a burden on the planet, or something in between.

The Portal aims to serve as a unique access point to timely, comprehensive migration statistics and reliable information about migration data globally. The site is designed to help policy makers, national statistics officers, journalists and the general public interested in the field of migration to navigate the increasingly complex landscape of international migration data, currently scattered across different organisations and agencies.

The Religion and State (RAS) project is a university-based project located at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. Its goal is to create a set of measures that systematically gauge the intersection between government and religion. Specifically, it examines government religion policy.

Religious Diversity Index (RDI) Scores by Country Table is based on the index scores in Global Religious Diversity demographic study by the Pew Research Center.

A global ranking of soft power from Portland and the USC Center on Public Diplomacy (CPD) that combines objective data and international polling. “In today's global information age, victory often depends not on whose army wins, but on whose story wins.” (John Arquilla). Scroll through reports and policy briefs to view Soft Power 30 reports.

This website ranks the most polluted countries and regions.

World Population Review's compiles data from the UN, US Census, and other sources and makes it more accessible through graphs, charts, analysis and visualizations.