Election Level do-file

The Manifesto Project Election Level do-file is the successor of the median voter dataset which accompanied the books Mapping Policy Preferences I and II (Budge et al. 2001; Klingemann et al. 2006). The script facilitates the calculation of indicators on the election level such as the median voter, the center of gravity, the degree of polarization, etc.

Starting with version 2009a, the do-file can be applied to any version of the Manifesto Dataset. We decided to provide a script instead of a dataset because scripts are much more transparent and flexible than ready-made datasets.

The script only works in Stata. The do-file assumes that a version of the Manifesto Project Dataset is loaded in Stata. All scores related to ideology are based on the rile-variable of the Manifesto Dataset. However, small changes (e.g. replacing rile by planeco) would result in the same scores for other ideological dimensions.

Do-file:                 DO

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Please note that manifestoR (for R) can also calculate the median voter position.