Datasets to Measure Polarization

Chapel Hill Expert Surveys


Description

The Chapel Hill Expert Surveys (CHES) estimate party positioning by surveying political scientists specializing in European parties and integration in six waves from 1999 to 2019. The most recent wave includes all 27 European member states as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Turkey.

CHES topics include party positions on European integration, EU policies, the general left/right dimension, the economic left/right dimension, and the cultural left/right dimension. More recent surveys also include questions on non-EU policy issues such as anti-elite rhetoric, immigration, redistribution, decentralization, and environmental policy. With regard to polarization, the CHES includes several items and dimensions that can be used to measure ideological polarization at the elite level.

Items

Items that can be found in this dataset:

Measures

Measures that use this dataset:

MeasurePolarization
Range Between Outer-Right and -Left Partiesideological, elite
Standard Deviationideological, elite, mass

Visualization

Use cases

Publications that use this dataset:

TitleAuthors
Cleavage politics, polarisation and participation in Western Europe
  • Borbáth et al. (2023)
Polarization and ideological congruence between parties and supporters in Europe
  • Caroll and Kubo (2018)
Ideological Polarization and Far-Right Parties in Europe
  • Dalton and Berning (2022)
Multidimensional Party Polarization in Europe: Cross-Cutting Divides and Effective Dimensionality
  • Koedem, Binding and Steenbergen (2025)
Dimensions of polarization, realignment and electoral participation in Europe.
  • Le Corre Jurratic (2024)