The Manifesto Project

Since its formation as the Manifesto Research Group/Comparative Manifestos Project (MRG/CMP), the Manifesto Project has dealt with different aspects of political party performance as well as the structure and development of party systems. The project is based on quantitative content analyses of parties' election programs from more than 50 countries covering all free, democratic elections since 1945. In 2003, the project received the American Political Science Association's (APSA) award for the best data set in comparative politics.

The general purpose of the Manifesto Project for the past thirty years has been to measure political preferences of parties across time and space. Since October 2009, the Manifesto Project has been financed by a long-term funding grant from the German Science Foundation (DFG). This grant provides opportunities to update and extend the manifesto texts and content analytical data to the scientific community under the title of Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR).

You can find more information about the project as well as old (MPPI/MPPII) and recent (2009 update, 2010 update) data on our new preliminary website: http://manifestoproject.wzb.eu.