Creating a valid and reliable body of event data requires meeting a number of challenges (clearly defining the events to be studied, developing reliable sources of information on those events, identifying source documents with relevant information, etc.). The fact that most event data projects,…
Activities & Achievements
What We Do
Activities & Achievements
Transforming information into knowledge
that advances human flourishing.
Explore how the Cline Center and its affiliates are pursuing our shared vision through research, education, collaboration, and outreach.
The Societal Infrastructures and Development Project (SID): Gauging Differences in Institutional Designs
This PowerPoint presentation was presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association on September 3-6, 2009. It provides an overview of research on national institutions, societal contexts and societal welfare, broadly defined.
Popular Efficacy in the Democratic Era: A Reexamination of Electoral Accountability in the United States, 1828-2000
Social scientists have long criticized American voters for being "unsophisticated" in the way they acquire and use political information. The low level of political sophistication leaves them vulnerable to manipulation by political "elites," whose sway over voters is deemed incontrovertible and…
Automatic Document Categorization for Highly Nuanced Topics in Massive-Scale Document Collections: The SPEED BIN Program
This whitepaper offers a brief introduction to the BIN system of the Social, Political and Economic Event Database (SPEED) project. BIN provides automatic document categorization of highly nuanced topics across massive-scale document archives. The BIN system allows a group of trained human…
Institutions and Economic Growth: An Empirical Assessment of the Post-WW II Era
This paper was presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association on September 1-5, 2010. This paper uses data from an on-going project, the…
The Endurance of National Constitutions
Constitutions are supposed to provide an enduring structure for politics. Yet only half live more than nineteen years. Why is it that some constitutions endure while others do not? In The Endurance of National Constitutions, Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg, and James Melton examine the causes of…
Definitions of Destabilizing Events in SPEED
This document is designed to provide operators of the EXTRACT suite of programs with an accessible guide to the definition and meaning of events intended to be captured in the Societal Stability Protocol (SSP) with the Social, Political and Economic Event Database (SPEED) project. It is a…