Research Design
The study was a component of the PIREDEU project funded by the European Union’s FP 7 program. The contextual data are aggregate macro data of economic, social, cultural, political and purely geographical nature. Hence, they are complementary data that link with the other collection efforts of the EES 2009 PIREDEU Study.
The PIREDEU contextual data are presented in two separate data sets which correspond to two levels of aggregation – country level and political party level. In the country-level dataset units of observation are countries in the year 2009 year. In the party level dataset, units of observation are political parties existent at national-level. The dataset contains information about political parties which stood for the 2009 European Parliamentary election and gained support with at least 1% of valid votes – this was the general rule used for including a party in the dataset. However, there were a few exceptions from this rule. The country-level dataset contains information on electoral rules, party system characteristics, economic indicators and other socio-cultural for all 27 countries.
