Core Databases
OECD Statistics ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan) Access InstructionsCountry-Level and Region-Level Data
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES)
Data Centre: UNESCO Institute for Statistics
Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Study
UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission on Europe) Statistical Database
Resources by Topic
International Relations
Data on International Relations: Portal designed to include the most useful data sources on process of international conflict and cooperation, as well as international economic, political and social data.
International Programs Data: Maintained by the Bureau of the Census, this database provides demographic data for selected indicators, countries and user-selected regions, and years, population statistics, and summary data, population pyramids and access to more data for a single country.
NationMaster: Designed by a web publishing company in Australia, this site gathers statistics from a variety of sources, mostly international agencies, and presents them in an easy-to-use and interesting graphical formats.
OFFSTATS: Official Statistics on the Web: The OFFSTATS database provides access to free statistics from official sources on the web.
Development and Poverty
World Bank Data:Provides open access to development statistics by country, topic and indicators, often with extensive time-series. World Bank Data offers data visualization and analysis tools both on screen and as downloadable files.
International Debt Statistics "Focuses on financial flows, trends in external debt, and other major financial indicators for developing and advanced economies (data from Quarterly External Debt Statistics and Quarterly Public Sector Debt databases). Includes over 200 time series indicators from 1970 to 2011, for most reporting countries, and pipeline data for scheduled debt service payments on existing commitments to 2019."
World Development Indicators Data on poverty, health, education, gender and environment as well as a comprehensive view of the world economy from the World Bank. Coverage 1960
Global Poverty Mapping Project: The Global Poverty Mapping Project has downloadable poverty data sets and maps. The Poverty Mapping Project is sponsored by CIESIN (The Center for International Earth Science Information Network) at the Earth Institute, Columbia University.
Human Development Reports: The UN Human Development office publishes global, regional and national human development reports. Human Development Report's primary purpose is to assess the state of human development across the globe and provide a critical analysis of a specific theme each year. It combines thematic policy analysis with detailed country data that focus on human well-being, not just economic trends.
Global Governance
Center for Systemic Peace: The Center continually monitors political behavior in each of the world's major states, that is, all those with current populations greater than 500,000 (167 countries in 2014). Specific Projects include: Global conflict Trends, State Fragility Index and War List, Global Trends in Governance, The Polity project datasets and more
Worldwide Governance Indicators: Reports aggregate and individual governance indicators for 215 economies over the period 1996–2012, for six dimensions of governance: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, Control of Corruption
Freedom House: Freedom in the World: Freedom House’s annual country-by-country report on global political rights and civil liberties.