The Political Settlements Dataset: Power Configurations and Political Blocs in the Global South, 1946-2018

Abstract

Political scientists have long sought to understand power dynamics across the Global South, but efforts to systematically capture political power have been limited, and existing datasets have faced conceptual and measurement challenges. The Political Settlements (PolSett) dataset was developed to address these issues. This original expert survey-based dataset includes over one hundred political economy variables coded for forty two countries from 1946 or independence to 2018 (totalling 2,718 country years). It allows for a detailed mapping of countries’ power configurations, capturing information on the relative size, power and social composition of competing political blocs in society, as well as their internal cohesion, accountability relations and distribution of benefits. The dataset is expected to enable more direct and rigorous analyses of power differentials in the Global South and their impact on political and economic developments. This letter describes the conceptual background of the dataset, how it was constructed, discusses its validity, and highlights some of its key features.