Replication data for: Political Science Computing: A Review of Trends in Computer Evolution and Political Science Research

The increase in computing power in the last four decades has had an enormous impact upon the way political scientists conduct research. In this paper, we review the development of computing resources and the lifting of computational limitations of the use of political methodologies. Using descriptive analysis, we demonstrate that Moore’s Law, or the doubling of power in computing hardware every 18 months, is closely associated with the adoption of advanced statistical methods and database usage in political science research. Our findings are surely not startling to researchers but our analyses do highlight and provide important details as to the evolution of the profession over the last few decades. We aim at providing hints as to the future direction of political science research as computational capabilities continue to grow.