Review of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Integrated Module Dataset

Description

This data review examines the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) Integrated Module Dataset (IMD), a large cross-national survey covering voting behavior and political attitudes across dozens of countries since the mid-1990s. Among the project's key substantive themes are voter choice, ideological self-placement, and evaluations of political actors. The coverage of post-Soviet and Baltic states in the dataset is uneven, with greater representation of the Baltic states; this limits longitudinal analysis for cases such as Russia and Ukraine. Finally, the review outlines the dataset’s main methodological features and limitations, including cross-national differences in survey implementation and potential biases related to social desirability and political context, such as fear-driven responses. The data can be dowloaded for free, although registration on the GESIS portal is required.

Countries

Belarus Estonia Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lithuania Russia Ukraine

Keywords

Elections Electoral Politics Voting Behavior

Language of data

English

Disciplines

Comparative Politics Political Science

Methods of data collection

Cross-Sectional Survey Survey