UNITAS: Unified Regime Classifications for 23,787 Country-Years (1800–2017)

UNITAS provides probabilistic regime classifications for 23,787 country-years from 1800 to 2017. This dataset combines information from multiple existing regime indicators to identify regime types and transitions while incorporating measurement uncertainty. The replication package includes R scripts and pre-computed results for the associated academic paper.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the relationship between regime type and civil war risk based on probabilistic classifications.
• Identifying periods of regime transition based on a unified framework combining multiple indicators.
• Studying the stability of semi-democracies using a dataset designed to handle measurement uncertainty.
• Reproducing empirical analyses on regime dynamics using the provided R scripts and pre-computed results.

Strengths

• Covers 23,787 country-years, providing a long temporal scope from 1800 to 2017.
• Incorporates measurement uncertainty and probabilistically identifies transitions, addressing key methodological challenges.
• Includes replication code (R scripts) and pre-computed results for computationally intensive steps.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is known, but specific variable definitions and data formats require inspection.

Provenance

Source

Political Analysis Dataverse

Collection Method

Combined information from commonly used regime indicators using the UNITAS framework.

Time Range

1800–2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-17 20:29:55; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global (country-level)