Dataset instruments

The Spanish Policy Agendas Project has developed different databases for the analysis of the political, the public and the media agenda. Most of these databases include information from the late seventies to present, a period long enough to obtain reliable data and results about the functioning of the Spanish democracy.

The construction of these databases provide a new tool for the study of the dynamics of agenda setting and issue framing in Spain; and for developing a systematic comparative analysis about agenda dynamics among countries and policy subsystems. These databases are a point of departure that seeks to increase our understanding about the impact of politics upon agenda dynamics.

At present, we have developped the following datasets:

• Speeches of the Prime Minister
• Executive Bills
• Oral Questions
• Parliamentary Bills
• Laws (Organic, Ordinary, Decree-Laws, Legislative Decrees)
• Party Manifestos (PP and PSOE for the general elections)
• Mass Media
  • - Frontpages of El País: (1996-2011)
  • - Frontpages of El Mundo: (1996-2011)

 

• Laws of the Comunidades Autónomas (1980-2009)
• Adapted Series of the Most Important Problem (MIP) series compiled by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS)

These databases provide essential indicators to measure policy decisions (passed laws); the direction of political and legislative priorities of the executive and parliamentary groups (bills, annual speeches); symbolic discussions about policy issues (oral questions, parliamentary bills) and the correspondence between the political, the public and the media agenda.

All these databases have been coded according to the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) methodology developed by Baumgartner and Jones in the United States. This coding system has been already adapted to the Spanish political system introducing some revisions in order to adjust the USA coding system to the Spanish context.

The result is a codebook with the following cathegories:

Policy Agendas Major Topic Codes

• Macroeconomics
• Civil Rights
• Health
• Agriculture
• Labor
• Education
• Environment
• Energy
• Immigration
• Transportation
• Internal Affairs and Justice
• Social Policy
• Housing
• Commerce and Industrial Policy
• Defense
• Science and Technology
• Foreign Trade
• International Affairs
• Government and Public Administration
• Public Lands and Water Management
• Culture

We have also created categorical and dummy variables in order to measure crucial aspects of the Spanish political system like Europeanization (for example identification of those laws which are transposing EU directives, oral questions related to EU decisions, etc); political decentralization (for example laws related to the process of delegation of political power to the Comunidades Autónomas); and general transformations of the political system like changes in the government, type of governments (minority of majority), etc.

 

At present we are developing the following databases:

• Interest groups mobilization at the parliamentary and governmental arenas, and the media
• Social media (Twitter, blogs...) political content for the case of major political mobilizations.

The datasets and codebooks of the Spanish Policy Agendas Project are available on this site free of charge for research, academic activities and other non-commercial purposes.

How to cite: