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Data Available

Obtaining Data

There is a large archive of social science data available online at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, or ICPSR. You can click on the ICPSR page for a listing of the available data. To see the types of data on the site, go to "Search Full Data Holdings" and then choose "Browse our subject areas".

Many of the datasets can be downloaded freely, while others are restricted to authorized users. NYU is an authorized user, so you will be able to access the data once you have created an account. You will need to create the account while using a computer with an NYU IP address, so that ICPSR recognizes that you are an authorized user.

The ICPSR site includes codebooks along with their datasets. Most of the codebooks are available in machine-readable format and can easily be downloaded. A few, however, are available in hard copy only, and these must be ordered from ICPSR. In this case, contact the Politics Data Center staff so that the codebook can be requested for you. Note that this process can take up to several weeks.

Data Available Locally

Some data sets are archived on the politics server. You can access this data by logging in to a lab computer and looking in the L: (or "Data") drive, or by clicking on this link and logging in with the same username and password. Note that you can use Stat-Transfer on any PC in the labs to convert datasets between different formats.

See also the faculty data sets page.

Useful Links