Who Governs in American Politics? We Use Data to Find Answers

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Resources for political science research on American politics. Topics include US political institutions, political elites (e.g. Trump and conservative media), state and local politics, US political history, and American political culture. Also see law, courts & justice (for resources on US Supreme Court) and political behavior (for behavior not uniquely American).

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Populism in American Politics
From LSE (4:48)


Is the Number of Unauthorized Immigrants Living in the U.S. Declining?
From the Pew Research Center (4:06)

MORE VIDEOS: See Video Channels for more political science videos!

LEARN HOW: Watch Lecture Videos for Essentials of Political Analysis, Video Tutorials for R, Stata, SPSS, and Excel

ORIGINAL PROJECT: Studying Presidents

Pres. A. Johnson's Positions on Roll Call Votes:
39th: House Senate 40th: House Senate

This data is part of a larger project to identify the policy preferences of all U.S. Presidents. See index.

More Q. Than A.

Career Planning Advice for Students (in Simple Diagram)
As a college professor, I have had many opportunities to talk with students about their...

MORE QUESTIONS: Cases that Illustrate Felony-Murder Rule

Blogs, Podcasts & Journals

National Review of Black Politics: .A quarterly journal of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists devoted to quality scholarship about Black Politics.

Publius: The Journal of Federalism: .Publishes latest developments, trends, and empirical and theoretical work on federalism.

Breaking Battlegrounds: .Interviews opinion leaders from across the world to discuss politics, culture, and policies that are shaping our day-to-day lives.

Congress, Two Beers In: .Government Affairs Institute's Senior Fellows discuss current congressional politics.

Ballpark, The: .LSE US Centre's regular online audio show on US politics, policy, and research.

See All Political Science Journals

American Politics Data Sites

NC Center for Public Policy Research: .Publishes among other things, legislator and lobbyist effectiveness rankings.

State Data and Policy Actions to Address Coronavirus: .From the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Vital Statistics on the U.S. Congress: .Compiled by the Brookings Institution

Princeton Gerrymandering Project: .Research on the effects of gerrymandering in the U.S.

American Legislatures Project: .Aims to measure the ideology of individual state legislators and state legislatures as a whole over the past several decades, state and individual-level data available.

See All American Politics Data Sites

Replication Datasets for New Articles

No Right to Be Wrong: What Americans Think About Civil-Military RelationsRobert Ralston, +1 more author (2023 est.) POP, more info.
Stata files: 1, datasets: 2, text files: 1, other files: 1

Congressional Approval & Responsible Party Government: The Role of Partisanship & Ideology in Citizen Assessments of the Contemporary U.S. CongressCarlos Algara (2023) POLBEH, more info.
R files: 7, other files: 1, text files: 1

Examining Democratic and Republican National Committee Party Branding Activity, 1953-2012Boris Heersink (2023) POP, more info.
Stata files: 1, datasets: 8, text files: 1

Polls, Context, and Time: A Dynamic Hierarchical Bayesian Forecasting Model for US Senate ElectionsYehu Chen, +2 more authors (2023) POLAN, more info.
archives: 2

The Electoral Costs and Benefits of Feminism in Contemporary American PoliticsMarzia Oceno, +2 more authors (2023) POLBEH, more info.
Stata files: 3, datasets: 1

Congressional Representation: Accountability from the Constituent's PerspectiveStephen Ansolabehere, +1 more author (2022) AJPS, more info.
R files: 10, Stata files: 4, PDF files: 2, text files: 1, other files: 2, datasets: 9

Estimating the Locations of Voters, Politicians, Policy Outcomes, and Status Quos on a Common ScaleJames Battista, +2 more authors (2022) PSRM, more info.
R files: 1, other files: 6, PDF files: 6, datasets: 1, text files: 1, LaTeX files: 1

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Also see Journal Archives | Author Replication Data | All Subfield Articles

Authors with Datasets

Windett, Jason .UNC-Charlotte, see data page.

Mayhew, David .Yale University, see books with datasets.

Ansolabehere, Steven .Harvard University, see dataverse.

Levendusky, Matthew .University of Pennsylvania, see dataverse.

Kriner, Douglas .

Olds, Christopher .University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, see dataverse.

Gelman, Andrew .Columbia Univ., see dataverse.

Nyhan, Brendan .University of Michigan, replication datasets listed on web page.

Cox, Gary .Stanford Univ., see data page.

Kirkland, Justin .University of Virginia, see dataverse.

See All Authors with Datasets