Joel Selway, Political Science

1. Evaluation of how well the academic objectives of the proposal were met

The Dataset was completed and two papers were produced. One has been sent out for review and the other presented at an annual political science conference.

2. Evaluation of the mentoring environment

The Mentoring Environment was organized well in terms of providing a host of students opportunities to be part of a large research project. I chose the best students to be co-authors on the final papers. Not all were interested or capable, but I feel that even non-co-authors benefited from participation on the project.

3. List of students who participated and what academic deliverables they have produced or it is anticipated they will produce

Several students were involved in the compilation of the dataset. They were each assigned regions and responsible for making coding decisions after consulting numerous primary documents. They also worked in a team to resolve conflicts in coding. These students included:

Darin Self, Desiree Freeman, Reed Rasband, Ashlynn Andrewsen, Elden Griggs, Kim Mei-hua Roy, Laura Boyer, Sam Elmer, Blair Harris, Marcos Gallo, Carly Madsen A student was a co-author on one paper.

Darin Self (now a graduate student at Cornell University) Three students are co-authors on the other paper that has been submitted for review.

Darin Self (now a graduate student at Cornell University)

Reed Rasband (now a graduate student at Harvard University)

Desiree Freeman

4. Description of the results/findings of the project

We compiled data on over 30 variables concerning the institutional characteristics of semi-democracies. Our dataset included 619 elections in 127 countries between 1946 and 2012. One pattern I will note here is for the tendency of semi-democracies to choose institutions that used majoritarian electoral rules and had presidents as heads of state. Both these institutions give more power to either single persons or to majority parties.

5. Description of how the budget was spent

The budget was spent entirely on student wages.