These nuanced perceptions hold interesting potential for parties when they try to persuade citizens of a minority government. Stay tuned for more insights on political representation under minority governments from our #MINORITYRULE project!

Despite low knowledge levels and general opposition towards minority governments, citizens believe them to work better with the opposition and listen to the demands of all voters. Meanwhile, they see min. governments as less stable, less able to solve conflicts, less legitimate and less reliable.

Next, we find that citizens dislike minority governments in all countries. In Sweden, only 10% of respondents like them! Especially older voters and government supporters dislike them. Knowledge about minority governments increases opposition towards them.

More likely to answer correctly? Citizens with ⬆️ education, ⬆️ political interest, older voters, and men (although for men likely due to guessing). Small country differences. Most common mistakes: Minority governments defined by getting less than half of votes or by exclusion of the largest party.

Our survey shows that about 1 in 4 citizens can correctly define a minority government (excluding lucky guesses). This is about the same as the share of people that can correctly define the roles of all parties in parliament.

The German data is not great, I collected it from the member's pages of the individual MPs. Once you have all those in a list (which MP was in which committee per term), combining it with the existing dataset is straightforward (just need to check and jnify names and code policy areas).

This dataset truly was a monumental team effort, it took more than three years to put together. Thanks to everyone who contributed and gave feedback along the way. If you find any errors or have ideas for extensions, please contact us!

As a first application, we show that women across all countries are much more likely to be assigned to low and medium prestige committees (coding from WhoGov by @jacobnyrup) and as members rather than leadership. We are excited to see the many ways other people will use this data!

Each position is assigned a role according to the table below. Committee members are by far the most common, but there are other types. We also collect executive positions.

The dataset covers European countries plus New Zealand and the US from 1989 to 2024. Overall, there are over 130,000 positions! Each entry is one MP’s position for one party within one legislative term.

The current consensus in political science is that Nazis hating me and me hating Nazis are both equal parts of the ~polarization problem

Give Tadej Pogacar French citizenship and we'll avoid the runoff!

The "somewhat" is just perfect. How many placebo Europes matter more?? HOW MANY?!

The end. Shout out to Nyunyu wholesale dongdaemun for an excellent collection.

10. Political theory

9. Climate politics

8. Political behaviour

7. Social democracy in crisis