Mapping Policy Preferences from Texts Statistical Solutions for Manifesto Analysts

Andrea Volkens, Director of MARPOR, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin,Judith Bara, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Queen Mary University of London,Ian Budge, Research Professor in Government, University of Essex,Michael D. McDonald, Professor of Political Science, Director of the Center on Democratic Performance, Binghamton University

The Manifesto Research Group (MRG) and its successors - the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) and Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR) - is an international project which has been collecting and analysing manifestos and platforms from over fifty post-war democracies for over forty years. It is now housed at the Wissenschaftszentrum, Berlin, with a long-term grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG). Having concentrated previously on OECD, EU and CEE countries, it is now extending its collection to Latin America and beyond. For further information please go to https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu

Foreword
Preface
Introduction: Characterising the Data Correctly in Order to Measure them Accurately
PART I: VALIDATED, AUTHORITATIVE, INDISPENSIBLE: THE MANIFESTO ESTIMATES IN POLITICAL RESEARCH
1. The Best Tools to Tackle the Job, Ian Budge and Thomas Meyer
2. Using The Manifesto Estimates to Correct Systematic 'Centring' Error in Expert and Electoral Positioning of Parties, Robin E. Best
3. Using The Manifesto Estimates to Refine Party Family Placements, Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Ian Budge
PART II: VALIDITY GUARANTEES RELIABILITY: HIGH RELIABILITY LIMITS ERROR
4. Validated Estimates versus Dodgy Adjustments: focusing excessively on Error Distorts Results, Ian Budge, Michael D. McDonald and Thomas Meyer
5. Understanding and Validating the Right-Left Scale (RILE), Ian Budge and Thomas Meyer
6. Measuring Uncertainty and Error Directly From the End-Estimates, Michael D. McDonald
PART III: DELIVERING QUALITY DATA: COLLECTION, CODING, CONTROLS, COMMUNICATION
7. Linking Uncertainty Measures to Document Selection and Coding, Ian Budge
8. What are Manifestos for? Selecting and Typing Documents for the Database, Nicolas Merz and Sven Regel
9. Coder Training: Key to Enhancing Coding Reliability and Estimate Validity, Onawa P. Lacewell and Annika Werner
10. Data Entry and Access: Introducing the Manifesto Project Database (MPDb), Sven Regel
11. From Data to Inference and Back Again: Perspectives from Content Analysis, Simon Franzmann
PART IV: EXPLOITING THE MULTI-LEVEL ESTIMATES TO STUDY REPRESENTATION COMPARATIVELY
12. Parties and Citizens: Representation over 28 Countries, Ian Budge and Hans-Dieter Klingemann
13. Linking Data-Sets from Party to Individual Levels in order to Evaluate Congruence Measures Comparatively, Pola Lehmann and Henrike Schultze
14. Presidential versus Parliamentary Representation: Extending Manifesto Estimates to Latin America, Andrea Volkens and Judith Bara