Polity III: Regime Type and Political Authority Indicators, 1800-1994

Polity III is a modified and updated version of POLITY II, focusing on indicators of political authority and regime type. It covers 177 members of the international system from 1800 to 1994. The dataset was created by Keith Jaggers.

Use Cases

• Classifying political regimes as autocratic or democratic based on the two primary indicators.
• Analyzing the evolution of executive recruitment processes based on competitiveness and openness variables.
• Modeling constraints on political power using the chief executive constraints and centralization of state authority indicators.
• Studying historical trends in political participation based on its regulation and competitiveness variables.

Strengths

• Covers a long temporal range from 1800 to 1994.
• Includes 177 members of the international system.
• Focuses on 10 specific variables for regime type and political authority.

Limitations

• Row count and file formats are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Keith Jaggers

Collection Method

Modified and updated version of POLITY II (ICPSR 9263).

Time Range

1800-1994

Freshness

Last updated date is unknown.

Geography

177 members of the international system (global coverage).