Citation Link: https://doi.org/10.25819/ubsi/11133

Politische Popularität: Die »Political Polls Database« (PolPoll)

Publication Type
Book
Series
Transformationen des Populären. Working Paper Series des SFB 1472
Author(s)
Manow, Philip 
Institute
DFG-Sonderforschungsbereich 1472 "Transformationen des Populären"
Subjects
dataset
political parties
voting intention polls
comparative politics
cost of ruling
DDC
320 Politik
GHBS-Clases
Date Issued
2026
Abstract
Political approval ratings, particularly voting intention polls, have become a central indicator of the public self-observation of democratic politics. Within the Collaborative Research Centre 1472 “Transformations of the Popular”, project C07 studies how political popularity is measured and publicly observed and how this may feed back on itself. Empirical analysis of such dynamics requires a comprehensive, long-term database of political support measures. This paper introduces the »Political Polls Database« (PolPoll), a comprehensive dataset of voting intention polls in European democracies. PolPoll currently comprises 321,675 observations from 46,963 polls covering 633 parties and party alliances in 28 European countries; some series begin in the mid-twentieth century. We describe PolPoll’s conceptualization, sources, and structure and discuss its analytical potential using selected research questions. We then demonstrate, using an application to the well-documented “cost of ruling”, how PolPoll can address questions in comparative politics. Reproducing key findings from the literature serves as a plausibility check and initial validation. PolPoll provides an empirical basis for analyzing long-term, cross-national dynamics of political support and their significance for the transformations of the popular.
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
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