Polity data series

The Polity data series is a data series in political science research. Along with the V-Dem Democracy indices project and Democracy Index (The Economist), Polity is among prominent datasets that measure democracy and autocracy.

For overview of democracy indices, see Democracy indices.

The Polity study was initiated in the late 1960s by Ted Robert Gurr and is now continued by Monty G. Marshall, one of Gurr's students. It was sponsored by the Political Instability Task Force (PITF) until February 2020. The PITF is funded by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The data series has been criticized for its methodology, Americentrism, and connections to the CIA. Seva Gunitsky, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, stated that the data series was appropriate "for research that examines constraints on governing elites, but not for studying the expansion of suffrage over the nineteenth century".

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