The dataset captures characteristics of political parties in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, West Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Greece, Portugal, and Spain between 1950 to 2011.
This dataset uses the following categories for parties: Left: communist; socialist, social democratic, and labor; and other various left-wing parties (e.g., left-libertarian parties); Right: far-right (e.g., neo-fascist, right-wing populist), classical liberal, Conservative Christian Democratic, and other various right-wing parties; Centrist Christian Democratic (Centrist CD): non-conservative Catholic parties; Secular Center (Secular Cent): non-catholic parties of the center. The data set also includes a total Christian Democratic party category and all variables for Radical Right-Wing Populist and Left-Libertarian parties.