README.txt
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The West European Voter dataset pools electoral survey data from eighteen Western democracies between 1961-2020. This project harmonized a total of 182 election studies on selected socio-demographic, political attitudes, and voting behavior variables. It contains individual-level information for 464033 respondents. 


The dataset is accompanied by the following documentation files:

a) "Codebook.docx" provides detailed information on the variable labels and values.

b) "Data sources.xlsx" includes the URL to access the original data files from each individual election study.

c) "List of parties and leaders included.xlsx" lists the parties and leaders corresponding to variables PARTY_, LEADER_, LR_PARTY_, LR_DIST_, PTV_ and NEVER_ 1 to 23. Grey cells are used to signal the instances in which leader thermometer variables are absent. Red cells indicate the centre-left leaders and blue cells centre-right leaders; these refer exclusively to the personality traits battery (EMPATHY_LEFT; EMPATHY_RIGHT; HONESTY_LEFT; HONESTY_RIGHT; COMPETENCE_LEFT; COMPETENCE_RIGHT; LEADERSHIP_LEFT; LEADERSHIP_RIGHT).

d) "Variable continuity guide.xlsx" details, for each election study, the original variables used to construct the harmonized version.