Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Data collection for each CSES Module is five years in length. After the first year of data collection is complete, advance releases of each CSES Module are then disseminated approximately annually and contain whatever election studies have been collected and processed as of the release date. Final releases of CSES Modules are scheduled to occur as soon as possible after the end of each five-year data collection period, with it typically requiring a year or more for the project to receive the remaining election studies and process them.

The work of the CSES Secretariat is funded by the American National Science Foundation, the GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, and the University of Michigan’s Center for Political Studies. The project also receives in-kind support from participating election studies, additional organizations that sponsor planning committee meetings and conferences, and the many organizations that fund national election studies that participate in CSES.

The process for an election study to apply to join the project is an informal one. Researchers who are conducting a national election study may express their interest by emailing the project at: [email protected].

Participating in the CSES provides your election study and organization with international exposure, and enables researchers globally to use your data in comparative research. Collaborators benefit from their participation in a global network of scholars with similar interests, receive opportunities to present their own work, receive assistance and advice in raising funding, and have input into the project’s governance.

Collaborators must raise funds for their own nationally-representative post-election study, conduct it according to the methodological guidelines and instructions listed at the beginning of the questionnaire, and deposit the dataset and required documentation with the CSES Secretariat afterwards in a timely fashion.

Collaborators should deposit the following items as soon as possible after conducting their data collection:

• the dataset containing their nationally-representative post-election survey, necessary identification variables, administrative variables, and weight variables as appropriate
• the survey questionnaire in all of the original languages of administration
• if available, an English translation of the survey questionnaire
• a Macro Report and Design Report, filled out according to the time of the election study

To add scholarly works to the CSES bibliography, be they your own or others’ works, please use our convenient Bibliography Entry Submission Form.

For all other questions or issues, including error notifications, the project can be contacted via the following email address: [email protected].

There are up to three weight variables available for each election study which appears within a CSES dataset:

• the sample weight seeks to correct for any unequal probability of selection due to the sampling design of the election study
• the demographic weight seeks to to bring the demographic distribution of the data closer to the population distribution
• the political weight seeks to adjust the reported political behavior of respondents in light of the actual vote count

The aforementioned weight variables are developed by individual collaborators for each election study and may be cumulative, or not.

The CSES project is not able to provide advice as to which weights are appropriate to use in a particular situation, as this is best left to analysts to decide based on their detailed knowledge of the research question they are investigating and the type of analysis they are using. We recommend that analysts consult the Variables Description section of the CSES codebook for detailed information about each included election study weight.

Numerical codes are assigned for each party, coalition, and presidential candidate for which we have data. These codes are used in variables such as vote choice, where any party, coalition, and presidential candidate is possible to appear as a response.

Alphabetical codes are used for variables such as party/candidate left-right placement, where each variable refers only to one specific party, or the respective leader of that party. Alphabetic codes A through F are assigned to the top parties (and their associated leaders) contesting the election, ordered in descending order of their popular vote share. Alphabetic codes G through I are optional variables provided so that collaborators can add a party/candidate which is not among the top vote shares, but is thought to be important to ask about for another reason.

Data Linkage facilitates the bringing together of information from two or more data sources with minimal effort to enhance datasets. This linked data can relate to the same polity, political party, event, or time. Across disciplines, the process has various descriptions: record matching, entity heterogeneity, field matching, or merge/purge. CSES engages in two forms of Data Linkage, namely Direct Linkage and Data Bridging.

Direct Linkage is the inclusion by CSES of various macro-level data originating from other sources (e.g., The World Bank, the IDEA) directly in CSES data products. These macro data explain the characteristics of the political system and contextual conditions of polity at the election time. Data Bridging facilitates the possibility of linking CSES data with other familiar sources through standard identifiers already included in CSES. These include polity identification variables ending in _UN is the three-digit United Nation polity code, and the identification variable ending in _NAM is the verbatim name of the polity. More information on Data Bridging possibilities within CSES are here.