An automated database of the european parliament
Published in European Union Politics, 2009
Recommended citation: Bjørn Høyland, Indraneel Sircar and Simon Hix (2010)."An automated database of the european parliament."European Union Politics 10 (1) 143 - 152. https://doi.org/10.1177/1465116508099764
We present an automatically updatable database of background information about Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from 1979 until the present. Although this information is already directly accessible through the European Parliament’s web page, it is presented in a manner that makes it ideal only for those interested in finding information about individual MEPs, but difficult for anyone interested in doing large-N analysis. We provide an online ‘live’ source of background information about MEPs that is tailored towards the need of the latter group. Our web page allows researchers to specify the time period in which they are interested and to obtain data on committee, party group and delegation membership, as well as leadership positions within seconds. As the collection of the data is fully automated, we are able to keep the data updated as long as the European Parliament (EP) continues its current practice of making background information about members available online.