Milan Svolik's Institutions in Dictatorship Dataset

A dataset containing the institutions in dictatorships data from Milan Svolik, 2012. The Politics of Authoritarian Rule. New York: Cambridge University Press. The original data and codebook can be found at http://campuspress.yale.edu/svolik/the-politics-of-authoritarian-rule/. This particular dataset is undocumented there.

svolik_institutions

Format

An object of class tbl_df (inherits from tbl, data.frame) with 4845 rows and 20 columns.

Variable descriptions

country_name

Standardized country name. This is the same across all datasets in this package, so you can always join them by country_name and year. Character with 136 distinct values. Most common: China (63), Egypt (63), Iran (Persia) (63), Oman (63), Paraguay (63), Saudi Arabia (63). NAs = 0.

GWn

Gleditsch-Ward numeric country code. See Gleditsch and Ward (1999). Numeric. Max = 990, min = 40, distinct = 136, mean = 517.376, sd = 222.215, NAs = 0.

year

Year. Numeric. Max = 2008, min = 1946, distinct = 63, mean = 1979.355, sd = 15.987, NAs = 0.

military

Type of military control. Possible types are "civilian" (civilians exercise military control), "corporate" (the military as an institution exercises control - e.g., there's a functioning junta), "personal" (a military dictator exercises control via the military), and "indirect" (the military exercises veto power). Character with 5 distinct values. Most common: civilian (3328), corporate (560), personal (840). NAs = 16.

executive

How the executive was selected. Ranges from "unelected" to "elected with less than 75% of the vote". Character with 6 distinct values. Most common: elected by less than 75 unelected (1727). NAs = 89.

legislative

How the legislature was selected. Ranges from "no legislature" to largest party controls less than 75% of the seats". Character with 7 distinct values. Most common: largest party controls less than 75 (814), none (864), one party or candidate per seat (1730). NAs = 172.

party

Type of party restrictions. Ranges from "banned" to "multiple." Character with 4 distinct values. Most common: banned (882), multiple (2238), single (1688). NAs = 37.

svolik_country

Country name in the original dataset. Character with 137 distinct values. Most common: China (63), Egypt (63), Iran (63), Oman (63), Paraguay (63), Saudi Arabia (63). NAs = 0.

GWc

Gleditsch-Ward alphabetic country code. See Gleditsch and Ward (1999). Character with 136 distinct values. Most common: CHN (63), EGY (63), IRN (63), OMA (63), PAR (63), SAU (63). NAs = 0.

cown

Correlates of War numeric country code. Differs from GWn for a few country-years. See Gleditsch and Ward (1999). Numeric. Max = 990, min = 40, distinct = 136, mean = 517.296, sd = 222.04, NAs = 0.

polity_ccode

Country code in Polity datasets. Differs from GWn for a few country-years. See Gleditsch and Ward (1999). Numeric. Max = 990, min = 40, distinct = 137, mean = 517.295, sd = 222.041, NAs = 0.

region

Region. Character with 18 distinct values. Most common: Eastern Africa (571), Western Africa (618), Western Asia (596). NAs = 0.

continent

Continent. Character with 5 distinct values. Most common: Africa (1963), Americas (629), Asia (1674). NAs = 0.

GW_startdate

Date at which the state entered the system of states according to Gleditsch and Ward, or NA if it has never been a member. Date. Max = 2006-06-05, min = 1816-01-01, distinct = 119, NAs = 0.

GW_enddate

Date at which the state ceased to be a member of the system of states according to Gleditsch and Ward, or NA if it still exists. Date. Max = 2006-06-04, min = 1975-04-30, distinct = 6, NAs = 4671.

microstate

Indicator of whether the state is a microstate, according to Gleditsch's list of microstates. Logical. TRUE = 107, FALSE = 4738, NAs = 0.

lat

Latitude. Numeric. Max = 61.524, min = -38.416, distinct = 136, mean = 16.006, sd = 20.327, NAs = 0.

lon

Longitude. Numeric. Max = 178.68, min = -175.198, distinct = 136, mean = 25.855, sd = 57.982, NAs = 0.

in_cow

Whether the country-year is in the Correlates of War system of states. Logical. TRUE = 4521, FALSE = 324, NAs = 0.

in_system

Whether the country-year is in the Gleditsch-Ward system of states. See Gleditsch and Ward (1999). Logical. TRUE = 4840, FALSE = 5, NAs = 0.

References

Svolik, Milan (2012). The Politics of Authoritarian Rule. New York: Cambridge University Press.

See also

Other institutions: PIPE, democracy_mentions_yearly, lied

Other regime characteristics: PIPE, all_gwf_extended_yearly, all_gwf_periods, all_gwf, kailitz_yearly, lied, magaloni_extended, magaloni, polity_annual, wahman_teorell