Alexander Yee
Pronouns: he/him
Research Mentor(s): Allen Hicken
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Political Science / LSA
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 1 – 10am – 10:50am
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Alexander Yee, Allen Hicken, Julia Lippman, Tyler Watt, Sam Braden
Presenter: 1
Abstract
The Constituency-Level Election Archive Project was created in response to a desire within the academic political science community for comprehensive, worldwide and easily accessible election data. CLEA focuses on documenting constituency-level elections (think the U.S. House of Representatives) because it is a common institution globally, and therefore readily comparable between countreis. CLEA’s team of UROP students performs two primary tasks: diligently transcribing and reformatting raw election data into standardized Excel spreadsheets and correcting minor errors in previous CLEA datasets. The first process entails determining which elements of a raw dataset is relevant for CLEA’s purposes and then transcribing those values into an Excel spreadsheet. Once the relevant data is collected, political parties in that election are assigned a unique “party code†that is consistent throughout the CLEA database. Party codes make it easier for those using CLEA data to track a particular political party over time. While coding parties, online research is conducted to verify the name and identity of political parties in English (and the country’s language if applicable). An entry for each political party is then added to an appendix, alongside descriptive information. Finally, researchers perform qualitative and quantitative checks on the data to ensure accuracy and alignment with CLEA’s format. The CLEA database has been used in a lengthy list of publications, including a comparative study on the rise of national parties in different parliamentary systems and research analyzing the relationship between party nationalization and the level of social spending in 22 OECD countries. CLEA’s mission is to include as many elections from as many countries as possible and create a substantive, comprehensive election database for posterity.
Social Sciences
