Mapping Policy Preferences from Texts

Andrea Volkens, Director of MARPOR, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, Judith Bara, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Queen Mary University of London, Ian Budge, Research Professor in Government, University of Essex, Michael D. McDonald, Professor of Political Science, Director of the Center on DemocraticPerformance, Binghamton University The Manifesto Research Group (MRG) and its successors - the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) and Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR) - is an international project which has been collecting and analysing manifestos and platforms from over fifty post-war democracies for over forty years. It is now housed at the Wissenschaftszentrum, Berlin, with a long-term grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG). Having concentrated previously on OECD, EU and CEE countries, it is now extending its collection to Latin America and beyond. For further information please go to https: //manifesto-project.wzb.eu

Foreword ; Preface ; Introduction: Characterising the Data Correctly in Order to Measure them Accurately ; PART I: VALIDATED, AUTHORITATIVE, INDISPENSIBLE: THE MANIFESTO ESTIMATES IN POLITICAL RESEARCH ; 1. The Best Tools to Tackle the Job ; 2. Using The Manifesto Estimates to Correct Systematic 'Centring' Error in Expert and Electoral Positioning of Parties ; 3. Using The Manifesto Estimates to Refine Party Family Placements ; PART II: VALIDITY GUARANTEES RELIABILITY: HIGH RELIABILITY LIMITS ERROR ; 4. Validated Estimates versus Dodgy Adjustments: focusing excessively on Error Distorts Results ; 5. Understanding and Validating the Right-Left Scale (RILE) ; 6. Measuring Uncertainty and Error Directly From the End-Estimates ; PART III: DELIVERING QUALITY DATA: COLLECTION, CODING, CONTROLS, COMMUNICATION ; 7. Linking Uncertainty Measures to Document Selection and Coding ; 8. What are Manifestos for? Selecting and Typing Documents for the Database ; 9. Coder Training: Key to Enhancing Coding Reliability and Estimate Validity ; 10. Data Entry and Access: Introducing the Manifesto Project Database (MPDb) ; 11. From Data to Inference and Back Again: Perspectives from Content Analysis ; PART IV: EXPLOITING THE MULTI-LEVEL ESTIMATES TO STUDY REPRESENTATION COMPARATIVELY ; 12. Parties and Citizens: Representation over 28 Countries ; 13. Linking Data-Sets from Party to Individual Levels in order to Evaluate Congruence Measures Comparatively ; 14. Presidential versus Parliamentary Representation: Extending Manifesto Estimates to Latin America