From its inception as Manifesto Research Group/Comparative Manifestos Project (MRG 1979–1989/CMP 1989–2009), the currently named Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR) provides quantitative content analysis of electoral manifestos of more than 50 countries, including all democratic elections from 1945. In 2003, the project achieved the American Political Science Association´s award for the best dataset in Comparative Politics. In the actual period (2009-2021), MARPOR is extending data collection and coding to Latin America with the purpose of offering data on political preferences of both parties and presidential candidates. At the moment, series for Argentina, Brasil and Chile are already available.

Why Latin American countries are being incorporated into the Manifesto Project´s database? Has the project´s methodology been adapted during the last few years? How difficulties regarding data collection and coding have been faced? The objective of this seminar would be to discuss these and other questions related to MARPOR´s last territorial extension. Mainly, it would examine some theoretical and conceptual implications of the Manifesto Project´s study of Latin America democracies and it would shed light on different possibilities to use its enhanced dataset.

For more information: lavst12@pitt.edu.