Electoral Systems and Personal Vote Incentives for 180 Countries, 1978-2005

Joel W. Johnson's database updates and expands the coding of electoral systems from Gaviria et al's (2003) Database of Particularism. It covers up to 180 countries from 1978 to 2005, ranking systems by the degree to which institutions create incentives for candidates to cultivate a personal vote. The database was created in 2007 and last updated in 2010.

Use Cases

• Modeling the relationship between electoral rules and personal vote cultivation based on theoretical frameworks from Carey and Shugart (1995).
• Comparative analysis of vote pooling and ballot access control across different electoral systems.
• Rank-ordering electoral systems by tier and distinguishing mixed-member systems for institutional classification.
• Investigating the impact of district magnitude on electoral outcomes using the two recorded measures.

Strengths

• Covers up to 180 countries, providing broad comparative scope.
• Includes data from 1978 to 2005, offering a 27-year temporal range for longitudinal study.
• Distinguishes systems by multiple theoretical dimensions of personal vote incentives.

Limitations

• Data last updated in 2010; may not reflect recent electoral reforms.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale ML.

Provenance

Source

Joel W. Johnson, Colorado State University Pueblo

Collection Method

Updates and expands coding from Gaviria et al's (2003) Database of Particularism.

Time Range

1978-2005

Freshness

Last updated 2010; freshness unverified.

Geography

Up to 180 countries (specific list unknown)