party2d/README.md

party2d

Code and processed model inputs for generating two-dimensional party-position estimates from text and expert data. The model combines manifesto and media text indicators with expert survey placements in a Bayesian dynamic item-response framework.

Repository contents

• data-setup/ — source download, source-file checks, and rebuild workflow for raw files that cannot be redistributed here.
• src/julia/ — Stan data preparation, model fitting, post-estimation, enrichment, and validation.
• models/ — Stan model specification.
• data/ — processed party-level inputs used by the Julia/Stan model.
• metadata/ — data dictionary and source-support documentation.
• diagnostics/ — repository diagnostics report regenerated after model estimation.
• data/releases/ — release-ready data files, checksums, and diagnostics report.

Processed inputs needed by the model are included in data/ so the estimation step can be reproduced from the model-ready data.

Source data and redistribution

The public repository does not contain the original raw/source files. Several inputs are third-party datasets with their own terms of use, and the Morgan historical file is a local OCR/transcription source. Instead, this repository provides:

1. committed model-ready inputs in data/, sufficient for fitting the Julia/Stan model; and
2. data-setup/, an R/Shell workflow that downloads script-accessible sources, checks locally supplied raw sources, and rebuilds comparable model-ready inputs locally.

data-setup/ downloads script-accessible sources and checks locally supplied sources for:

• PolDem
• PartyFacts crosswalk
• CHES family files
• POPPA from Harvard Dataverse
• Global Party Survey 2019 from Harvard Dataverse
• V-Party through the provider's download form

Two inputs require user-provided access/material:

• Manifesto Project: users must obtain the source data through their own Manifesto Project access.
• Morgan historical expert data: morgan_positions_raw.csv is not publicly downloadable; it can be provided on request and should be placed locally under _local/raw/morgan/.

The setup workflow never overwrites committed files in data/. See data-setup/README.md for exact commands and source details.

Run the full source-data setup workflow with:

bash data-setup/run_data_setup.sh

This downloads script-accessible source files, checks required local files, rebuilds model-ready inputs locally, and writes a comparison report. Manifesto Project requires your own provider access, and the Morgan OCR/transcription file can be provided on request.

Running the pipeline

Run the full workflow with:

bash run_estimation.sh full

This checks that model-ready inputs are present, then executes the Julia/Stan workflow scripts:

bash scripts/01_prepare_data.sh   # checks model-ready inputs; does not rebuild raw data
bash scripts/02_fit_model.sh
bash scripts/03_extract_estimates.sh
bash scripts/04_enrich_estimates.sh
bash scripts/05_validate_estimates.sh

The numbered scripts can also be run manually in that order.

The Bayesian model is computationally expensive. The production run used 4 cores on an AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX and took 60,372 seconds, approximately 16 hours 46 minutes.

If model output is already available, rebuild estimates without refitting Stan:

bash run_estimation.sh reuse

reuse verifies the model-ready inputs, then reruns post-estimation, enrichment, and validation while skipping the Stan fitting step.

To check the local setup without fitting the model, run:

bash run_estimation.sh dry-run

After estimation and validation have been run, regenerate the diagnostics report with:

Rscript diagnostics/generate_diagnostics.R

The report is written to diagnostics/generated/diagnostics_report.pdf and copied to data/releases/party_2d_diagnostics_report_v0.pdf.

Data inputs

The model-ready inputs are included under data/:

• text_data.csv
• expert.csv
• lr_data.csv
• union_mapping.csv
• party_families.csv

Original raw source files are not redistributed. Rebuilding inputs from raw files is separate from the normal estimation workflow and never replaces committed data/ inputs automatically.

Output dimensions

The two position dimensions are scaled from 0 to 1:

• Economic left-right: economic left to economic right.
• Cultural cosmopolitan--traditionalist: cosmopolitan to traditionalist.

Column definitions are in metadata/data_dictionary.csv.

Release files

The public release assets are:

• party_2d_election_year_panel_v0.zip
• party_2d_annual_model_output_v0.zip
• party_2d_diagnostics_report_v0.pdf
• SHA256SUMS

SHA256SUMS hashes the release assets listed above.

License

Repository contents are released under CC BY 4.0 except where third-party source terms require otherwise. See LICENSE.