Operationalisation: Conceptual Validity and Data Reliability

Abstract

The data are all collected by country, the period studied is the post-war era (1945 to 1990) and information is organized at different levels of aggregation:

• 1. On the level of governments:

  • party-support and the complexion of government;

  • duration and type of government;

  • reshuffles and modes of termination;

• 2. On the level of separate ministries:

  • political parties (affiliation);

  • competences and portfolios;

  • individual features (name & sex).

The party-in-government-or-in-support variable as well as the portfolio variables are primarily based on Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, but at the same time have been cross-checked with the work of von Beyme, Paloheimo, Mackie & Rose, and Lane et al.