Cornelius Erfort

Cornelius Erfort

Postdoctoral Researcher

PARTYPRESS Database

Interactive Visualization

This interactive visualization tool allows you to explore the PARTYPRESS Database and a preview of a new database which extends PARTYPRESS to significantly more countries and more recent time frames. The combined database contains information on the issue agendas of political parties in 25 European countries from about 2010 to 2025. The database is based on the coding of 400,000+ press releases from over 150 political parties.

Read more about PARTYPRESS
Select Issues:
1 - Macroeconomics
2 - Civil Rights
3 - Health
4 - Agriculture
5 - Labor
6 - Education
7 - Environment
8 - Energy
9 - Immigration
10 - Transportation
12 - Law and Crime
13 - Social Welfare
14 - Housing
15 - Domestic Commerce
16 - Defense
17 - Technology
18 - Foreign Trade
19.1 - International Affairs
19.2 - European Integration
20 - Government Operations
23 - Culture
98 - Non-thematic
99 - Other
Select Parties:
Loading parties...

What is PARTYPRESS?

PARTYPRESS is a comprehensive database that measures the issue agendas of political parties in Europe. It contains information on the relative emphasis parties place on different issues in their press releases, allowing researchers to analyze how parties prioritize various policy areas over time.

The database includes data on 25 European countries and covers 23 different issues, from macroeconomics to immigration, environment, and European integration. Each issue is measured as a percentage of a party's total press releases in a given month. The data spans from about 2010 to 2025 and is based on the coding of 400,000+ press releases from over 150 political parties.

How to Use This Tool

  1. Select Issues: Choose one or more issues from the list to visualize.
  2. Select Parties: Choose specific parties or countries to compare.
  3. Visualization Options:
    • Smooth Data: Apply smoothing to reduce noise in the data.
    • Within-Country Averages: View the average issue emphasis across all selected parties within each country.
    • Overall Average: View the average issue emphasis across all selected parties, countries and issues.
    • Export to CSV: Download the current visualization data as a CSV file.

Interpreting the Results

The y-axis shows the percentage of a party's press releases devoted to a particular issue. Higher values indicate that a party emphasized that issue more frequently in its communication. The x-axis shows time, allowing you to track how issue emphasis changes over time.

You can click on items in the legend to show/hide specific data series, making it easier to focus on particular parties or countries.

About the Data

This tool visualizes data from the PARTYPRESS Database, which is described in detail in the paper "PARTYPRESS: A New Database of Party Issue Agendas" (2023). The database is freely available for research purposes.

For more information about the database and its construction, please refer to the original paper: PARTYPRESS: A New Database of Party Issue Agendas