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Social Sciences Data Resources
ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset) This link opens in a new window
A disaggregated data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping project that collects the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and protest events across the world.
Terms of Use.
Ancestry Library Edition This link opens in a new window
Census, vital, church, court, and immigration records from Canada, Europe, Australia, and other areas of the world. Users can search by names, birthdates, locations, and more. Terms of Use. Coverage: 1521-present.
CIOS This link opens in a new window
Publishes interrelated census-level databases providing different views on the communication field's scholarship, people, and academic departments. Includes the Visual Communication Concept Explorer, ComAbstracts, ComIndex Online, ComVista, and ComAnalytics.
CIRI Human Rights Dataset
The CIRI Human Rights Dataset contains standards-based quantitative information on government respect for 15 internationally recognized human rights for 202 countries, annually from 1981-2011. It is designed for use by scholars and students who seek to test theories about the causes and consequences of human rights violations, as well as policy makers and analysts who seek to estimate the human rights effects of a wide variety of institutional changes and public policies including democratization, economic aid, military aid, structural adjustment, and humanitarian intervention.
Correlates of War
Seeks to facilitate the collection, dissemination, and use of accurate and reliable quantitative data in international relations. Includes data on topics such as war, militarized interstate disputes, national material capabilities, world religions, formal alliances, territorial changes, and more.
CountryWatch This link opens in a new window
Provides critical global and country-specific information and data in two sources: Country Reviews are full-text reports on each country around the globe and Country Wire is a country-by-country global news service that provides real-time news. Terms of Use.
Data Citation Index This link opens in a new window
Discover research data sets and data studies published in international data repositories, journals, books, and conference proceedings. Covers the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Terms of Use. Coverage: 2009-present.
Data.gov This link opens in a new window
The home of the U.S. Government’s open data, providing access to data, tools, and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, design data visualizations, and more. Terms of Use.
Data.World Government
Find open data about government contributed by thousands of users and organizations across the world. Free “Community” account required to explore datasets.
Eurostat
The statistical office of the European Union, providing data about the economy, finance, trade, populations, social conditions, environmental issues, science, and technology in Europe.
Freedom in the World
Numerical ratings and supporting descriptive texts for 195 countries and 15 territories, analyzing the electoral process, political pluralism and participation, the functioning of the government, freedom of expression and of belief, associational and organizational rights, the rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights in each.
Global Terrorism Database
Managed by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), this open-source database includes information on domestic and international terrorist attacks around the world since 1970, and now includes more than 200,000 cases. For each event, information is available on the date and location of the incident, the weapons used and nature of the target, the number of casualties, and–when identifiable–the group or individual responsible.
Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS)
The Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) regularly collects nationally representative data about the American public’s knowledge of, attitudes toward, and use of cancer- and health-related information. HINTS data are used to monitor changes in the rapidly evolving fields of health communication and health information technology and to create more effective health communication strategies across different populations.
Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive compendium of >37,000 data series and statistics from >1,000 sources recording every aspect of the history of the United States through the year 2000. Terms of Use. Coverage: 1500s-2000.
Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research (INSCR)
The Center for Systemic Peace's Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research (INSCR) provides access to multiple data collections on political violence and conflict, covering topics such as displaced populations, large-scale violence, acts of terrorism, and political instability in the form of coups and state failures. The INSCR is also the home for the Polity IV data on regime types.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) This link opens in a new window
Statistical data, publications, online courses, videos, and more on macroeconomic and financial topics. Information can be viewed globally or for specific countries. Terms of Use.
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Data Archive
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) maintains a data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields., health and medical care, education, and demography.
Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) Project
A research project that collects systematic data on contentious issues in world politics such as territorial, river, marine, and identity claims.
KidsData This link opens in a new window
KidsData, powered by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), provides California data for over 750 measures of health and well-being. Data can be browsed by topic, region, or demographic group.
Terms of Use.
Minorities at Risk
The Minorities at Risk (MAR) project tracks 284 politically-active ethnic groups throughout the world from 1945 to the present -- identifying where they are, what they do, and what happens to them. MAR is designed to provide information that aids comparative research and contributes to the understanding of conflicts involving relevant groups through selected project materials (the MAR database and codebook as well as detailed historical chronologies).
National Center for Education Statistics This link opens in a new window
Provides statistical data on American education produced by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the primary statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Education. Terms of Use.
OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Data This link opens in a new window
OECD Data and dataset cover the broad range of OECD activities & policies including economic, finance, sustainable development, social & environmental issues, and much more to search & extract charts, map, tables, and other data in hundreds of countries. Terms of Use.
Political Instability Task Force Worldwide Atrocities Dataset
The Political Instability Task Force (PITF) Worldwide Atrocities Dataset is a global dataset that describes, in quantitative terms, the deliberate killing of non-combatant civilians in the context of a wider political conflict. Data are coded and georeferenced using human coding rather than automated methods.
Population Reference Bureau (PRB)
Data from a nonpartisan research organization on global population trends and issues relating to population, health, and the environment.
ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive collection of congressional documents from 1789 to the present. Includes primary sources such as Legislative Insight, Bills by Number, Research Reports, and Committee Hearings & Testimony. Terms of Use. Coverage: 1789-present.
Quality of Governments Data
The QOG Institute is hosted by members of the Department of Political Science at Göteborg University in Sweden and is devoted to "the causes, consequences and nature of 'good governance.'" The aim of the QoG Datasets is to promote cross-national comparative research on quality of government output and its correlates.
RAND Tools
RAND tools may include models, databases, calculators, computer code, GIS mapping tools, practitioner guidelines, web applications, and various toolkits. All RAND tools undergo rigorous peer review to ensure both high data standards and appropriate methodology in keeping with RAND's commitment to quality and objectivity.
Re3data This link opens in a new window
Re3data is a global registry of research data repositories from different academic disciplines.
Terms of Use.
Registry of Open Data on AWS
This registry exists to help people discover and share datasets that are available via Amazon Web Services (AWS) resources.
Roper Center Archives This link opens in a new window
A collection of data from U.S. polling firms covering opinion on social issues, politics, pop culture, and more. The data bank contains over 710,000 questions, response results, charts, and data sets. Users must create a free account to use certain features. Terms of Use. Coverage: 1935 - present.
Sage Data This link opens in a new window
Over 600 customizable datasets with 14 billion data points from licensed and public domain datasets. Includes the EASI Market Planner, which provides data on consumer demographics and usage/spending patterns for products and services in the US. Terms of Use.
Statista This link opens in a new window
Statistics, reports, and insights on over 80,000 topics from 22,500 sources in 170 industries. Includes Digital Market Outlook, Consumer Market Outlook, and Consumer Insights (formerly Global Customer Survey). Terms of Use.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
SIPRI is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Established in 1966, SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public.
Transparency International
The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) focuses on corruption related to tackling climate change, documenting in detail risks for businesses, ranging from small entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa to multinationals from Europe and North America. The CPI ranks countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.
UNdata This link opens in a new window
UNdata provides access to international statistical databases compiled by the United Nations and other agencies. Datamarts contain over 60 million data points and cover a wide range of topics. Terms of Use.
United States Census Bureau This link opens in a new window
The Census Bureau provides data about people and economy of the United States. Statistics collected relate to the population, ethnicity, health, education, business, employment, housing, and income.
Terms of Use.
University of Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) Datasets Downloads
The UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia (UCDP database) provides data on organized violence and is the oldest ongoing data collection project for civil war, with a history of almost 40 years. UCDP produces high-quality data, which are systematically collected, have global coverage, are comparable across cases and countries, and have long time series which are updated annually.
World Bank Open Data This link opens in a new window
Free and open access to global development data at which the Development Data Group coordinates statistical and data work maintaining a number of macro, financial and sector databases coming from the statistical systems of member countries. Terms of Use.
Worldwide Governance Indicators
Worldwide Governance Indicators provides data for over 200 countries and territories, between the years 1996-2019, for the following dimensions of governance: voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption.
