This page contains some basic data sets used by scholars in International Relations.
For a much more comprehensive list of data and statistics of interest in IR and the Social Sciences, please see the Statistics & Data guide, found here.
NVivo
NVivo is licensed so all faculty, students, and staff can install and use it. Download here
Summary statistics from US and international public opinion surveys. Microdata available upon request.
Gallup Analytics is an online platform that provides subscribers with access to nearly a century of U.S. data and a decade of global tracking data known as the Gallup World Poll. The online platform includes new data and historical trends at the country, state and U.S. city levels. All trends are searchable and exportable.
Provides access to polling data from public opinion surveys from 110 countries, 1930s-present.
1935-present; Provided by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University, Roper iPoll is the largest collection of public opinion poll data. Roper iPoll contains nearly 800,000 questions and over 23,000 datasets from both U.S. and international polling firms. Surveys cover any number of topics including, social issues, politics, pop culture, international affairs, science, the environment, and much more. When available, results charts, demographic crosstabs and full datasets are provided for immediate download.
Social science data curated and archived by the Odum Institute Data Archive at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Key collections include the primary holdings of the Louis Harris Data Center, the National Network of State Polls, and other Southern-focused public opinion data.
a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research does not take policy positions. A subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
A compilation of surveys and original poll questions from the United States and more than 80 other countries, 1986-present.
1986-present; Polling the Nations is a compilation of more than 14,000 surveys conducted by more than 700 polling organizations in the United States and more than 80 other countries. Each of the records reports a question asked and the responses given, the polling organization responsible for the work, the date the information was released, the sample size, and the universe, i.e., the groups or areas included in the interview.
Europa World is the online version of the Europa World Year Book. Covers political and economic information in over 250 countries and territories, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
Provides national and state-level socioeconomic statistics about India, current.
Current, historical coverage varies; provides national and state-level socio-economic statistics about India culled from various secondary level authentic sources. Includes statistics on population, health, higher education, economy, agricultural and industrial production. Also provides data on sectors like banking and financial institutions, companies, co-operatives, crime and law, environment, foreign trade, labour and workforce, housing, media, energy and power, transport, urban-rural settlements, telecommunications, tourism, and other areas. Data and statistics can easily be downloaded in MS-Excel/Word/ and HTML formats. To access, click on the "IP login" tab.
The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) eLibrary Data package is a powerful tool to access authoritative, harmonized global statistical databases. It simplifies analysis and research with direct access to the IMFs data and statistical tools: Balance of Payment Statistics, Direction of Trade Statistics, Government Finance Statistics, and International Financial Statistics databases. You will find information and perspective on macroeconomics, globalization, development, trade and aid, technical assistance, demographics, emerging markets, policy advice, poverty reduction, and more.
Provides access to more than 250,000 datasets in the social and behavioral sciences. The database hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), established in 1962, is an integral part of the infrastructure of social science research. ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. To ensure that data resources are available to future generations of scholars, ICPSR preserves data, migrating them to new storage media as changes in technology warrant. In addition, ICPSR provides user support to assist researchers in identifying relevant data for analysis and in conducting their research projects. This database DOES NOT work with EZProxy. Please download the SSL-VPN client to your computer from software.brown.edu to access this resource from off-campus.
Current and historical; NBER is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works. Provides data sets about macroeconomics, industry, international trade, individual income and expenditure data, etc.
1948-present; United Nations Statistics Division ; demographic characteristics of countries, including population, households, housing, income, health and more.
Provides access to data from the UNESCO/OECD/EUROSTAT (UOE) Database on Education and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), current.
Current; OECD Education Statistics consists of two parts. UNESCO/OECD/EUROSTAT (UOE) Database on Education covers the outputs of educational institutions, the policy levers that shape educational outputs, the human and financial resources invested in education, structural characteristics of education systems, and the economic and social outcomes of education, learning and training throughout life. The second part is The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which is an internationally standardised assessment tool that was jointly developed by participating countries and administered to 15-year-olds in schools internationally.PISA assesses how far students near the end of compulsory education have acquired some of the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in society. In all cycles, the domains of reading, mathematical and scientific literacy are covered not merely in terms of mastery of the school curriculum, but in terms of important knowledge and skills needed in adult life.
A source of comparable statistics on the health and health care systems of the OECD economies, includes data found in the publication Health at a Glance, discontinued 8/2023.
Current; OECD Health Data is a source of comparable statistics on health and health care systems of the OECD economies. It enables health researchers and policy advisors in governments, the private sector and the academic community to carry out comparative analyses and draw lessons from cross-country comparisons of national health care systems. Many time series going back as far as 1960. Main fields covered include:
* Health Status * Health Care Resources * Health Care Utilisation * Expenditure on Health * Health Care Financing * Social Protection * Pharmaceutical Market * Non-medical Determinants of Health * Demographic References * Economic References
A source for statistics on public and mandatory and voluntary private social expenditure at the program level, current available.
Current available; OECD Social and Welfare Statistics includes a dataset in the area of social expenditure, of which the main social policy areas are as follows: old age, survivors, incapacity-related benefits, health, family, active labour market programmes, unemployment, housing, and other social policy areas. It also includes income distribution, which covers comparable data on the distribution of household income to provide both a point of reference for judging the performance of any country and an opportunity to assess the role of common drivers as well as drivers that are country-specific. Benefits and Wages series addresses the complicated interactions of tax and benefit systems for different family types and labour market situations, and the Child Well-Being dataset compares 21 policy-focused measures of child well-being in six areas, chosen to cover the major aspects of childrens lives: material well being; housing and environment; education; health and safety; risk behaviours; and quality of school life. Finally, Pensions at a Glance is covering all 34 OECD countries, and is designed to show future entitlements for workers who entered the labour market in 2008 and spend their entire working lives under the same set of rules.
National, regional, and global socio-economic data and time series from the World Bank, current
Current; published by the World Bank, WDI contains statistical data for over 550 development indicators and time series data from 1960-2003 for over 200 countries and 18 country groups. Data includes social, economic, financial, natural resources, and environmental indicators.