Introducing the Archive of Interwar Europe Election Data & Assemblies (AIEEDA)

Area of Science:

• Political Science
• Historical Sociology
• Quantitative History

Background:

• Interwar Europe (1919-1939) witnessed significant democratic transitions and political realignments.
• Existing datasets often lack multi-level granularity or comprehensive party-level information for this period.
• Understanding historical electoral behavior is crucial for contextualizing contemporary political trends.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the Archive of Interwar Europe Election Data and Assemblies (AIEEDA), a novel multi-level dataset.
• To provide researchers with detailed electoral, party, and cabinet data for interwar European democracies.
• To facilitate the study of voting behavior, party politics, and democratic stability during a critical historical juncture.

Main Methods:

• Compilation of electoral results from 137 national parliamentary elections across 25 European democracies.
• Inclusion of time-invariant ideological and organizational variables for 401 parties and 35 alliances.
• Collection and validation of disaggregated constituency/municipality-level data for selected countries, linked to national results.

Main Results:

• AIEEDA contains comprehensive electoral data for 137 national parliamentary elections and detailed party/alliance information.
• The dataset includes time-variant cabinet participation data for 412 cabinets.
• Disaggregated electoral data is available for Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, and Yugoslavia, with linking tables for France, Germany, and the UK.

Conclusions:

• AIEEDA serves as a valuable resource for social scientists studying historical voting and party politics.
• The archive enables out-of-sample testing of theories in a historical context.
• It provides a foundation for understanding contemporary political issues, such as the rise of radical right-wing parties, through historical analysis.