Project description

The Manifesto Project provides the scientific community with parties’ policy positions derived from a content analysis of parties’ electoral manifestos. It covers over 1000 parties from 1945 until today in over 50 countries on five continents. The DFG-funded MARPOR project continues the work of the Manifesto Research Group (MRG) and the Comparative Manifestos Project (CMP). On this website you find the Manifesto Project Dataset containing the parties' policy preferences generated by the project. You also find coded and uncoded election manifestos of the parties in the dataset as well as information and links to many applications for the dataset, related projects and publications etc.

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News

(2018-04-25) Tutorial series

• We start to release a number of tutorials on how to use the Manifesto Project Dataset and the Manifesto Corpus. You can find all tutorials by clicking on the "Tutorials" item in the navigation bar above.

(2018-02-23) Corpus Conference Wrap-up: Best Paper Award Winners

• For the first time, we awarded a best paper award at one of our conferences: the Manifesto Corpus Conference Best Paper Award worth 1,000 EUR. The prize was split and awarded to Jae-Hee Jung (Washington University, St. Louis) for "The Mobilizing Effect of Parties' Moral Rhetoric" and Stefan Müller (Trinity College Dublin) for "Prospective and Retrospective Salience".

(2018-01-26) Server problems solved - website up and running.

• We were having major problems with our server during the last two weeks. As you can see, these are solved now. If you are still facing problems, do not hesitate to contact us via manifesto-communication@wzb.eu. Sorry for the inconvenience.

(2017-12-18) New Dataset Version 2017b

• Dataset version 2017b is now available. We added new observations and corrected some errors. You can find all changes in the release notes. We also updated the South America Dataset to version 2017b - consult the release notes for all additions and changes. You can find both data sets and their release notes on the data > download page. This update comes along with a new version of the Manifesto Corpus.

(2017-11-24) Manifesto Corpus Conference Program Online

• We are happy to announce that we have finalized the program for our 2018 Manifesto Corpus Conference.
• Please find the program and further information (also regarding free registration for non-presenters) on the Manifesto Corpus Conference website.

(2017-09-04) Call for Papers: Manifesto Corpus Conference (1-2 February 2018)

• The Manifesto Project Team is organizing a conference on the Manifesto Corpus seeking submissions making use or applying the Manifesto Corpus.
• The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 2 October 2017.
• The best work presented at the conference will receive the Manifesto Corpus Award (dotted with 1,000€).
• Please find more information in the call for papers on the Manifesto Corpus Conference website.

(2017-08-18) New Dataset Version 2017a, DOIs, dataset version comparison dashboard, and change in MARPOR directorship

• Dataset version 2017a is now available. We added new observations and corrected some errors. You can find all changes in the release notes. We also updated the South America Dataset to version 2017a - consult the release notes for all additions and changes. You can find both data sets on the data > download page.
• All versions of the Manifesto Project Dataset are now acecssible permanently via digital object identifiers (DOI). The doi link to the current version of the main dataset: https://doi.org/10.25522/manifesto.mpds.2017a. Doi-links are also available for older versions of the dataset on our website. When using the new dataset, please also update the entry in your literature managment software by using the respective files on our website which also include the doi. Including the doi in the citation ensures that people can find the data and enhances the transparency of your research.
• We finished a new dashboard that indicates changes between different versions of the main dataset. The dashboard will not replace the release notes of the dataset, but complement them. The dashboard allows to identify the exact changes between two versions of the dataset. It illustrates additions, removals and changes in the data. We always recommend to use the most recent version of the dataset. However, sometimes scholars start doing an analysis with one version of the dataset that becomes outdated while working on their research project. The dashboard facilitates to identify whether the more recent version of the dataset contains substantial changes compared to the older version and should encourage users to use more recent data even for on-going projects. The dashboard is still in a beta state. You can find it here: https://visuals.manifesto-project.wzb.eu/mpdb-shiny/cmp_dashboard_dataset_version/
• Andrea Volkens handed over the directorship of MARPOR to Bernhard Weßels. She continues to work for MARPOR.

(2016-12-21) New Dataset Version 2016b

• Dataset version 2016b is now available. We added new observations, corrected errors and added some new variables. Check out all changes in the release notes.
• We also updated our dataset on the South American countries. Check out all changes in the release notes.

(2016-11-18) manifestata - our new stata add-on for the Manifesto Project Data and Corpus

• We are happy to announce the release of manifestata - our stata add-on to access and process the Manifesto Project Dataset and the Manifesto Corpus. manifestata is for Stata what manifestoR is for R. manifestata is the result of a cooperation with Alejandro Ecker from MZES, Mannheim.

(2016-07-22) Society for Political Methodology's 2016 Statistical Software Award

• We are happy to announce that Jirka, Sven, Pola and Nicolas won the Statistical Software Award 2016 of the Society for Political Methodology for manifestoR and the manifesto API. The Society for Political Methodology is the Methodological Section of the American Political Science Association.

(2016-06-09) Berlin Digital Humanities Prize 2016

• We are happy to announce that the team of the Manifesto Corpus won the Berlin Digital Humanities Prize 2016. The prize is sponsored by the interdisciplinary research network on digital humanities Berlin. Find more details and pictures from the ceremony here.

(2016-05-26) New Dataset Version 2016a

• Dataset version 2016a is now available. We added many new observations, corrected some errors and even added some new variables. Check out all changes in the release notes.

(2016-02-05) Article published on the Manifesto Corpus

• Have a look at our new article with the title "The Manifesto Corpus: A new resource for research on political parties and quantitative text analysis".
• The article is published in the peer-reviewd open-access journal Research & Politics. It announces the Manifesto Corpus and illustrates potential applications for substantive research.

(2016-03-22) New Version of R package manifestoR and Manifesto Corpus released

• Since today, a new version (1.2) of our R package manifestoR is downloadable from CRAN. It adds accessibility to the Manifesto Project's South America Dataset and several other features, which are documented in the ChangeLog. Also, the Manifesto Corpus Version 2016-2 was released in parallel, containing the coded manifestos for all our South America Observations. For full and easy access to these documents, manifestoR version 1.2 is required!

(2015-12-10) Successful extension of MARPOR funding (2016-2019)

• We received the confirmation that the funding of MARPOR by the German Research Association (DFG) will be extended by three more years from 2016 to 2019.

(2015-11-19) Release of next update

• We currently do not plan to release an updated version of the dataset within this year. Only little data is currently ready and it is not worth to create a new version of the dataset. We will code some more data and bundle for an update in the first half of 2016. This update will then also include data for the UK General elections of 2015.

(2015-10-02) Job announcement

• We are hiring up to three student assistants in Berlin. See the job announcement on the WZB website (in german or english). Deadline is the 12th of October.

(2015-09-11) We are now on twitter.

• @manifesto_proj announces new versions and corrections of the dataset and keeps you up to date on research using manifesto data.

(2015-09-11) Small updates to the website

• We slightly restructured the website and added some new content. We will continue to improve the website in the future. Let us know if you have problems or comments.

(2015-09-10) What happened during the last months...

• Coded manifestos available through the Manifesto Corpus: The Corpus publishes the digital codings on the quasi-sentence level the project has produced since 2009. It allows users to verify and check our codings, recode the data for their own purposes, create new subcategories, use them for automatic analysis, etc.

• Release of manifestoR: an R packages facilitating use and access of the Manifesto Project Data.

• Update 2015a available: It is the first dataset that reports data coded on the basis of the new category scheme. Check Version 5 of the coding instructions to learn more about the new category scheme. For everyone doing over time comparisons the dataset also reports the data aggregated into the old category scheme.

• First data from South American countries published: This new dataset will provide data on South American parties and presidential candidates. So far it contains data from Argentina, Brazil and Chile, more countries and elections will follow.

Citation

If you use any of the data you find on this website, please cite us. You find the correct citation for all datasets on all download pages. If you use the documents, please cite the Manifesto Corpus.