The QoG Basic dataset is a smaller version of the QoG Standard dataset. It consists of approximately 400 variables from 80 different data sources related to the Quality of Government
QoG Basic Dataset Codebook version Jan26
CSV
XLSX (Excel)
DATA (Stata)
SAV (SPSS)
CSV
XLSX (Excel)
DATA (Stata)
SAV (SPSS)
In the QoG Basic CS dataset, data from and around 2022 is included. Data from 2022 is prioritized; however, if no data is available for a country for 2022, data for 2023 is included. If no data exists for 2023, data for 2021 is included, and so on up to a maximum of +/- 3 years.
In the QoG Standard TS dataset, data from 1946 to 2025 is included, and the unit of analysis is country-year (e.g., Sweden-1946, Sweden-1947, etc.).
In the Codebook, you can find a description of all data sources and variables. We provide a list of the variables categorized into eighteen thematic topics. Detailed descriptions of all variables are sorted by original data sources. We hope that this will facilitate your search for variables.
When using QoG Basic Data, make sure to cite both the original source and
our publication:
Dahlberg, Stefan, Aksel Sundström, Sören Holmberg, Bo Rothstein, Natalia Alvarado Pachon, Victor Saidi Phiri, Chuwei Chen & Zhen Liu. 2026. The Quality of Government Basic Dataset, version Jan26. University of Gothenburg: The Quality of Government Institute, https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government . https://doi.org/10.18157/qogbasjan26
The QoG datasets are open and available, free of charge and without a need to register your data. You can use them for your analysis, graphs, teaching, and other academic-related and non-commercial purposes. We ask our users to cite always the original source(s) of the data and our datasets.
We do not allow other uses of these data including but not limited to redistribution, commercialization and other for-profit usage. If a user is interested in such use or has doubts about the license, they will have to refer to the original source and check with them if this is allowed and what requirements they need to fulfill.
Be mindful that the original data sources are the only owners of their data and they can adjust their license without previous warning.
The QoG Standard, Basic, and OECD datasets have been made possible thanks to researchers and institutions, who kindly share their data with us to disseminate it to a larger audience. Our compilation datasets and visualization tools are and will be always open-source, and it has been used by thousands of researchers and students across the world and disciplines.
If you have any dataset that is relevant to the quality of government, please contact us about incorporating it into our compilations.