TIMING THE CHANGES IN POLITICAL STRUCTURES - A NEW POLITY DATABASE

This article introduces the Polity IIId (''d'' is for dates) data set. The Polity md project codes the precise dates of changes in political structure identified by Polity III for all independent countries in t he international system from 1800 to 1994. By moving from annual measu rements of authority and polity characteristics, the Polity md data ar e more appropriate for event-based analysis. The authors discuss the i mplications of the new data set for event count and event history mode ls of democracy and war, democratization and war, regime type and civi l war, and causes of change in political structure.