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Description
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This edition of the World Handbook is composed of four files: aggregate data, daily political events, annual political events, and a new, quarterly political events file. The political events files have been updated to include the period 1978-1982, while the aggregate file is based upon data from the base years of 1950, 1955, 1960, 1965, 1970, and 1975. The aggregate data file presents political, economic, and social data and their rates of change for 155 countries. The data variables include measures of government expenditures, tax revenues, military expenditures and manpower, public education expenditures, political and civil rights indices, political and economic discrimination, separatism intensity, voting behavior, population (total, adult, working age, and density), GNP, energy consumption, coal, gas, and oil reserves and production, GINI measures of inequity, health and nutrition measures, literacy, school enrollment, media rates per capita, consumption measures, and labor relations. In general, ''These series indicate conditions under which governments have to operate and for which they may be held responsible.'' The sources for the collection are extensive and diverse. They are fully cited at each variable in the codebook. There are 359 variables for 155 countries. The data are available in card-image (17 cards per case) or OSIRIS format. There are three files of events data in this collection. The first file records daily political events, the second aggregates these events to an annual file, and the third aggregates the same events into a quarterly file. This edition of the World Handbook adds events data from the period 1978 to 1982 so that the collection now includes data from the years 1948 to 1982. In the daily political events file, 38 kinds of domestic events are distinguished, including demonstrations, riots, strikes, assassinations, elections, referenda, and imposition or relation of political restrictions, including censorship. Some of the 38 event types were only distinguished for the events occuring in particular periods. For example, the categories of bombing, ambush, raid, arrest, release of arrested, imposition of martial law or curfew, and relaxation of martial law or curfew were added in 1978. The daily events file contains 101,619 records and 40 variables. It has a logical record length of 62 and an OSIRIS dictionary. It is also available as a ''card-image'' file, with one 80-character record per case. 156 countries are included in the file. When daily events were aggregated into the annual events file and the quarterly events file, the 1968-1982 distinctions among types were not kept, and the distinctions were collapsed back into the 17 broader categories in order to maximize comparability with the 1948-1967 edition of the Handbook. Additionally, for the years 1968-1982, several additional variables denoting the attributes of mass political activity were coded. The annual events series file consists of summations of the occurrences of each type of event within each country on a year to year basis. The annual totals are given for the same countries as are given in the daily file, with the exception of three countries. The annual events file contains 21 variables for 156 countries for 35 years resulting in 5,460 records (156 X 35). The logical record length of the OSIRIS file is 119, and there are two 80-character card-images per case in the card-image file. The quarterly events series file consists of summations of the occurrences of each type of event within each country on a quarter to quarter basis. The 38 types of events coded in the quarterly evenets file have also been collapsed to 17 broader categories to maintain comparability with earlier editions of the handbook. This file contains 21 variables for 156 countries for 35 years times 4 quarters per year, resulting in 21,840 records. The logical record length of the OSIRIS file is 119, and there are two 80-character card images per case in the card-imaghe file. The codebook is available in machine-readable form. Note that the series on foreign interventions included in World Handbook II are not included in this edition of the Handbook. This series was not updated and data of this sort are being left to the several international political event collections. Users ordering the World Handbook III will ordinarily be sent all four files, the aggregate data, the daily events data, the annual events data, and the quarterly events data. The aggregate data are documented in a machine-readable (but non-OSIRIS) codebook, while OSIRIS codebooks are available for the three events data files. These data were originally processed by the Zentralarchiv For Empirical and Social Research at the University of Cologne, to archival standards. The three events data files, updated to include data from 1978-1982, were processed by ICPSR. Wild codes were corrected and documentation added to that supplied by the principal investigator. ICPSR has done no additional processing of the aggregate data file, except to provide the card-image versions and to verify card-counts and logical record lengths.
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v. 5.9
