Replication Data for: Identifying Ideologues: A Global Dataset on Political Leaders, 1945-2020

Researchers have long studied how the ideology of political leaders affects policymaking and social welfare. The limited coverage of cross-country ideology datasets, however, has meant that researchers have mainly focused on OECD countries. This letter therefore presents the Global Leader Ideology dataset, which vastly expands the scope of previous datasets by classifying chief executives as leftist, centrist, rightist, or non-ideological in 182 countries annually from 1945 or independence to 2020. The letter describes the dataset’s contents and coding, compares it to existing datasets, and illustrates its uses by exploring how the ideologies of political leaders differ around the world and over time. The letter thereby outlines a research agenda on the global causes of chief executives’ ideologies, and their effects on policies and socioeconomic outcomes.长期以来，学界始终致力于探究政治领导人的意识形态如何影响政策制定与社会福利。然而，跨国意识形态数据集的覆盖范围有限，导致相关研究主要集中于经合组织（OECD）国家。为此，本研究报告发布了全球领导人意识形态数据集（Global Leader Ideology dataset），该数据集通过对182个国家自1945年或各国独立之日起至2020年的年度政府首脑意识形态进行分类——将其划分为左翼、中间派、右翼或非意识形态四类，极大拓展了既往数据集的覆盖范围。本报告详述了该数据集的内容与编码规则，将其与现有同类数据集进行了对比，并通过探究全球范围内及不同时期政治领导人意识形态的差异，展示了该数据集的应用场景。此外，本报告还勾勒出一条研究脉络：探究政府首脑意识形态形成的全球动因，及其对政策制定与社会经济结果的影响。