Data Sources

Here you will find information on the original data sources and permissions where applicable for the analyses in the book. See the home page to download all replication data files and commands.

Chapter 1

Figure 1.1, Democratic Party Seat Share 1990-2004

Source: Clerk of the House of Representatives.

Extensions: The Clerk's site is updated each Congress, so the series can be kept up to date. Similarly, the site extends back to the 1st Congress. However, when extending back into time, complications regarding changes in parties, e.g. pre-Civil War, etc, arise.

Figure 1.2, Congressional Approval and Economic Expectations 1974-2004

Source: Christina Wolbrecht (Durr, Gilmour, and Wolbrecht 1997)

Notes: Both congressional approval and economic expectations are quarterly measures. Congressional approval is calculated using Stimson's (1991) dyadic algorithm which uses a standardized time metric to "average" many sources of the same question as well as alternative wordings of the question. This is the same algorithm Stimson uses to calculate policy mood. The code in R for his algorithm is available here.

Extensions: Congressional approval--data is available for 1997-present via Polling Report, though that leaves a gap from 1994-1996. Economic expectations--Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment provides monthly data of the index and its components, including economic expectations. Permission from the University of Michigan is required to use the data for publication purposes (Usage policy).

Figure 1.3, Suicide Deaths in Australia 1914-2004

Source: Andrew Leigh (Neill and Leigh 2008)

Extensions: The Australian Policy Institute extends the suicide method data through 2007.

Figure 1.4, Terrorist Events and Attacks on the U.S.A. and Other Interests 1968-2003

Source: Figure 1.4 is constructed by permission from Elsevier under STM guidelines from data published as Table 1 in Sandler and Enders (2004). The original source is the U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism (1998-2002), and tables provided to Todd Sandler in 1988 by the U.S. Department of State, Office of the Ambassador at large for Counterterrorism. See notes to the Table for more details.

Figure 1.5, Israeli-Palestinian-American Relations

Source:The time series in this figure were constructed by authors from event data. The source of the event data is the Kansas Event Data System.

Extensions: Data is updated periodically by the KEDS project. Data is from Reuters Newswire for the 1979-1999 period; Agence France Press from 1999-2005.

Figure 1.6, U.S. Homicides Data: Two Samples

Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports.

Note: The Uniform Crime Reports are best used at the annual level of aggregation for most purposes.

Extensions: The UCR website is updated regularly, check for the most up-to-date information.

Figure 1.7, President Clinton and G.W. Bush's Approval, Systematically Sampled

Source: Gallup Polls and CNN/USA Today/Gallup Polls (retrieved from Polling Report).

Note: The vertical line in the figure represents the switch from Clinton to Bush.

Extensions: Also available are monthly presidential approval data provided by Matt Lebo, see the bottom of the page for download. For information about this extended monthly series see here.

Figure 1.8, U.S.-Chinese Relations: Alternative Levels of Temporal Aggregation

Source:The time series in this figure were constructed by authors from event data. The source of the event data is the Kansas Event Data System.

Extensions: Data is updated periodically by the KEDS project. Data is from Reuters Newswire for the 1979-1999 period; Agence France Press from 1999-2005.

Figure 1.9, Gaza Conflict by the Hour

Source: Figure reprinted from Zeitzoff (2011) with permission from SAGE Publications.

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1, Homicides in the U.S. 1985-1993 with OLS Trend Line

See entry for Figure 1.6

Figure 2.7, U.S. Behavior to Israelis and Palestinians, 1985-2005

See entry for Figure 1.5

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1, U.S. Congressional Approval and Economic Expectations

See entry for Figure 1.2

Figure 3.2, Two Possible Determinants of Voting Intentions Under the British Labour Government of 1997:5-2006:9

Source: Sattler, Brandt, and Freeman (2010). Voting intentions are from the MORI polls. The interest rate data and exchange rate data are from the U.K. Office for National statistics and the International Monetary Funds' International Financial Statistics. See the original paper, particularly fn. 8 for more details.

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1, Israeli-Palestinian-American Relations 1985-2005

See entry for Figure 1.5

Figure 4.2, A Four Variable Model of the British Political Economy Under an Independent Central Bank and Labour Party Prime MInister, 1997:5-2006:9

See entry for figure 3.2

Chapter 5

Figure 5.1, Quarterly Macropartisanship in the U.S. 1953:1-1992:4

Source: Gallup Partisanship data as used in Box-Steffensmeier and Smith (1996).

Extension: Gallup regularly updates its data on partisan identification. See here.

Figure 5.2, Consumer Sentiment in the U.S. 1953:1-1992:4

Source: Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment provides the index. Permission from the University of Michigan is required to use the data for publication purposes (Usage policy).

Figure 5.3, Presidential Approval in the U.S. 1953:1-1992:4

Source: Gallup Presidential Job Approval survey data.

Extensions: Gallup regularly updates its data on presidential approval. See here.

Chapter 6

Figure 6.6, India and Pakistan Defense Spending: 1948-1990

Source: Correlates of War National Material Capabilities dataset v4.0.

Chapter 7

Figure 7.2, Probability of Obama Winning the 2008 Democratic Nomination, March 1, 2007 through April 1, 2008

Source: Iowa Electronic Market data.

Figure 7.3, Volatility in U.S. Presidential Approval 1953-2000

See entry for Figure 5.3

Figure 7.4, The Varying Efficacy of National Prospections, 1978-2004

Source: Lebo and Box-Steffensmeier (2008). Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment provides the prospections index. Permission from the University of Michigan is required to use the data for publication purposes (Usage policy).

Figure 7.11 U.S. Homicides: 1975-1993

See entry for Figure 1.6

Appendix

Figure A.1

See entry for Figure 1.2