Decreased Ideological Polarization and Conflict in Western Europe? (DIPAC) Government Declaration Data
A widely argued view is that dominant mainstream parties have become less ideologically distinct over time. Still, although this is a dominant and reoccurring thesis, we argue that it is largely unsubstantiated. Therefore, the goal of this project is to systematically compare the evolution of ideas and policies supplied by political parties, from the 1970s to the 2010s, in eight Western European countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and United Kingdom. The project aimed to answer the following two questions: To what extent are the ideas and policies of political parties converging or diverging in Western European party systems? Are changes in the parties’ ideas and policies initiated mainly by the parties, or are they adjusting to voter demand arising from social changes? Additionally, the project breaks new ground by testing central hypotheses of party system changes on unique data. We study government declaration with in-depth, qualitative, analyses of the actual ideas expressed in these documents, over time. The aim has been to collect all types of data as close as possible to the middle of each decade, i.e., close to 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2015. The project works with various data files. In this part, the project focuses on government declarations in Western Europe from the 1970s through the 2010s.
Hagevi, M., Blombäck, S., Demker, M., Hinnfors, J., & Loxbo, K. (2022). Party realignment in Western Europe : Electoral drivers and global constraints. Edward Elgar Publishing.
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Institutionen för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap
Minskad ideologisk polarisering och konflikt i Västeuropa?
Economic policy, public expenditure and revenue
Data on economic policy, including budget and fiscal policy, public expenditure and public revenue.
Data on elections, referendums, election campaigns, election results, candidates in elections, candidate selectors, election funding etc.
Ideas, ideals and theories on the ways governments and societies can be organised. Major political ideologies include anarchism, democracy, liberalism, conservatism etc.
Government, political systems and organisations
Issues relating to national, regional and local government, governing bodies (e.g. the Government, Parliament, local government bodies), public administration, other political organisations such as political parties. For example, data on government policies, political parties and their policies, political party leaders, trust in government bodies.
EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY BECAME FORMALLY KNOWN AS EUROPEAN UNION IN 1993.
THE STRUCTURE OF PARTIES WITHIN A POLITICAL SYSTEM (E.G. MULTIPARTY OR TWO-PARTY SYSTEM).
data/DIPAC Government Declaration Data.sav
data/DIPAC Government Declaration Data.tsv
documentation/DIPAC Government Declaration Data. 2.0.pdf