Analyzing the agenda of the U.K. Parliament over the long run

Author / Creator

Hanlon, W. Walker, (William Walker), author

Available as

Online

Summary

This article develops a method for quantitatively tracking the agenda of the British Parliament -- by which I mean the substantive topics on which Parliamentary debate was focused -- from 1810-2005...

This article develops a method for quantitatively tracking the agenda of the British Parliament -- by which I mean the substantive topics on which Parliamentary debate was focused -- from 1810-2005 using descriptions of 1.7 million Parliamentary debates from the Parliamentary Hansard. This provides a new tool for analyzing the evolution of the British political system across nearly two centuries. I describe and validate this new measure and then present an application that focuses on assessing the influence of the party in government on the Parliamentary agenda.

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