VAPS veto points dataset

Abstract

The Veto Points Data Set introduces dynamic data on institutional configurations in Europe. It comprises data on 49 countries ranging from 1990 to 2018 (for some cases, it goes further back in time). The dataset consists of three main components. First, it informs about the existence of veto points in the executive, legislative chambers, judiciary, electorate, and territory. This quantitative data is complemented by qualitative data on the institutional design. Second, the dataset includes humanly collected voting data of presidential, lower house and upper house elections, and cabinet configurations. Third, based on these electoral data, electoral system associations are computed to trace some of the most utilised electoral indices in political science such as the effective number of parties, lower house disproportionality, seat and vote volatility as well as the cabinet seat share. The data are publicly available for download and can be further linked to some of the main datasets on political parties such as the Manifesto Project and ParlGov. Moreover, an online dashboard allows to visualise univariate distributions and bivariate associations between the electoral indices. The integrity and reliability of this human-coded data is ensured through its reliance on primary data for election results, expert input on the country-specific institutional settings and repeated consistency checks. Web-hosted dashboard: https://vaps.shinyapps.io/vaps-dashboard/