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methodology

March 24, 2023

📐 Surveying the landscape of human rights data

Anne-Marie Brook Accurate data are needed to track human rights performance worldwide. But the range of different data sources available can be confusing, especially to non-experts. Anne-Marie Brook and Kobe Amos explain what qualities set Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) data apart Read more
January 5, 2023

Is the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index little more than a joke indicator?

Nicolás Palomo Hernández The public and the media increasingly use Democratic Global Performance Indicators (GPIs). But how good are these indicators at measuring democratic health? Nicolás Palomo Hernández looks at the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index as an example. He argues that the index has methodological and ideological biases, yet significant impact nonetheless Read more
October 25, 2022

Interdisciplinary social science and the limits of quantitative research

Avery Reyna Social scientists are increasingly using quantitative interdisciplinary research methods in the hope of obtaining more nuanced, concrete findings. However, Avery Reyna argues that without proper foresight, relying on these approaches to describe interactions between people, countries, and more complex sociopolitical systems may be harmful to the field overall Read more
October 10, 2022

A novel dataset of global political finance regimes

William Horncastle Most nations employ some form of regulation on political finance. William Horncastle explores the different approaches that are taken and presents his recently published open access dataset on political finance systems: the Regulation of Political Finance Indicator Read more
October 5, 2022

🦋 Understanding democracy without the ‘D-word’

Yida Zhai Public perceptions of democracy are diverse, and some even see democracy in authoritarian regimes. So directly using ‘democracy’ in surveys is prone to elicit biased responses. Therefore, Yida Zhai argues, it is necessary to conceptualise and operationalise democracy in an alternative manner without using the ‘D-word’ Read more
August 16, 2022

📐 Measuring human rights: facing a necessary challenge

Eduardo Burkle Reliable, accessible human rights data is vital to track the human rights performance of countries worldwide. Good data can help create a world where those rights are better understood and fulfilled. Discussing measurement projects, new methodologies, and the limits of human rights data is therefore vital, writes Eduardo Burkle Read more
July 25, 2022

🦋 The ‘Science of Democracy’ is more than falsification

James Wong While Jean-Paul Gagnon’s data mountain project aims to rescue an abandoned science, others reject the study as not genuinely scientific. James Wong advocates a pluralist view of the epistemic commitments of (political) science and argues that Gagnon’s project can be grounded in scientific anti-realism and constructivism Read more
July 19, 2022

Using Wikipedia for conflict forecasting

Christian Oswald Regularly updated data sources with global coverage are essential for (near) real-time forecasting. Christian Oswald and Daniel Ohrenhofer introduce Wikipedia as a new data source for conflict forecasting due to its ability to capture the salience and controversy of a topic Read more

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THE EUROPEAN CONSORTIUM FOR POLITICAL RESEARCH
Advancing Political Science
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