Historical Data Archive (H-DATA)
The Historical Data Archive (H-DATA) is a hub of historical country-level data going as far back as the French revolution or even further.
| Host | Stockholm University |
|---|---|
| Website | H-Data |
| Key Theme | Historical Data |
The Historical Data Archive (H-DATA)
H-DATA is a hub of historical country-level data going as far back as the French revolution or even further and offers unparalleled depth of data and temporality, enabling researchers to answer critical questions about the past but to also understand the origins of, and find historical parallels to, present-day problems.
By adding this long-term historical dimension, H-DATA makes it possible for researchers to study the path dependency of political institutions where changes are incremental or rare thus making long time-series essential to understanding their causes and consequences. By extending data back into time, H-DATA helps deepen and further our understanding of the conditions of the complex global challenges that we face today.
H-Data in Demscore
The Data
H-DATA works to collect, integrate, and curate historical data from Demscore’s other modules. The Demscore infrastructure includes three datasets from H-DATA, covering a time span from 1750 to 2017.
Data Preparation in the Demscore Infrastructure
The following section provides an overview of the data sources provided by H-DATA and how they are prepared and included in Demscore.
H-DATA Information Capacity dataset offers numerical data on five institutions and policies that modern states use to collect information about their populations and territories: (1) the regular implementation of a reliable census, (2) the regular release of statistical yearbooks, the operation of (3) civil and (4) population registers, and (5) the establishment of a government agency tasked with processing statistical information. The dataset also includes an overall index of “information capacity” for 85 polities from 1750 to 2015.
The H-DATA Foreign Minister Dataset consists of comparative historical data on foreign ministers’ background and reasons for leaving office in the world’s 13 former and current great powers from 1789 to the present. The data covers 1155 regular (non-acting) foreign ministers, as well as partial information on 173 acting foreign ministers, for the following 13 great powers: Austria (the Habsburg Empire/Austria-Hungary), Britain, China (Qing Empire/Republic/People’s Republic of China), France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Prussia/Germany, the Ottoman Empire/Turkey, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the United States.
The H-DATA Diplomatic Representation dataset builds upon the Correlates of War (COW) dataset Diplomatic Exchange, 1817-2005 (v2006.1) by expanding the country and temporal coverage of diplomatic representation during the 19th century by including states that have been excluded from the COW sample. The dataset is dyadic with each row containing two sets of identifiers, with the key variable being the level of diplomatic representation of country 2 by country 1.
Variables from H-DATA dataset in Demscore are available in their original form in the datasets’ respective Output Units. The figure below shows all Output Units we identified for H-DATA and which datasets belong to each.
All H-DATA variables can be retrieved through all other Output Units within H-DATA. The figure below is an overview of which variables can be retrieved in which other Output Units within this Module. The labelled arrows further indicate which aggregation methods we use and in what way observations are translated to each other.
Added are also translations between H-DATA Output Units and Output Units from other Modules that can be read up on in the Demscore Methodology Document.
Main Contact
You can find a detailed explanation of all Units and more information on their programmatic construction on the Documentation page and in the Demscore Methodology Document.