Political Party Database, 2011-2014

In a period of economic crises and rapidly changing communication opportunities traditional political actors have faced increasing challenges to their legitimacy. Yet despite these changes, political parties remain key actors in parliamentary democracies. They channel political recruitment, structure political choices, and offer opportunities for meaningful political participation. Because of this, it is vital to understand how parties' structures and resources shape democratic life. Unfortunately, the comparative study of political parties as organizational actors has been held back by the lack of systematically-collected cross-national data, and by the lack of standard vocabulary for conceptualizing and testing the impact of party resources and structures. The Political Party Database Project (PPDB) aims to fill both gaps. The multi-national research team has collected data on 122 parties in 19 countries in order to facilitate theory-driven testing of competing scholarly claims about the impact of party organizations. <br> <br> It is the intention the PPDB team to update and expand the database on a regular basis. It will be an ongoing resource for students of politics as well as for reformers seeking to improve representation and increase political participation. At the time of depositing the data, the PPDB team has published an edited volume with OUP and a peer-reviewed article in the journal 'Party Politics'. It is anticipated that the team will generate further papers, and hoped that other researchers will use the PPDB for their own purposes.<br> <br>