Codebook for Data Analysis in T he Election Trap: The Cycle of Post-electoral Repression and Opposition Fragmentation in Lukashenko s Belarus Konstantin Ash Motivation This codebook is a companion for the article The Election Trap: The Cycle of Post-electoral Repression and Opposition Fragmentation in Lukashenko s Belarus and is intended to replicate data analysis in the article that was conducted in both Stata and LIMDEP analysis programs. Please note that due to data management constraints all variable names in the.lmj file for LIMDEP analysis were contracted to eight characters from what is listed in the codebook. The unit of analysis for this study is a day within Belarus from the inauguration of President Alexander Lukashenko on July 20, 1994 through December 31, 2011, which leaves a total of 6,374 observations. Day Date of observation. Month Month of observation. Year Year of observation. Forthcoming in Democratization E-mail: kash@ucsd.edu 1
Election Day An election took place on the day in question. There were nine total elections during the period of analysis, with some parliamentary elections having multiple rounds. A total of 15 election days are recorded. Unemployment Rate Annual measure of unemployment rate in Belarus for the year in question. Data obtained from the IMF s Annual financial statistics. Log of Inflation Rate Annual measure of inflation rate (logged, due to some hyperinflation) in Belarus for the year in question. Data obtained from the IMF s Annual financial statistics. Economic Growth Rate Annual measure of economic growth rate in Belarus for the year in question. Data obtained from the IMF s Annual financial statistics. Protest One if protest occurs in the day in question, zero otherwise. Data on protest was generated through a search of LexisNexis English language data-base of news sources under All News, which encompasses both wire services and translations of local news sources into English. The source term that was used for the duration of the study was Belarus AND protest OR repression OR arrest OR demonstration OR gathering. A total of 309 protests were observed. Protest City City where protest took place. Extracted from LexisNexis sourced articles. Number of Arrests Number of individuals arrested during protest according to sourced articles in LexisNexis. Protest Topic Subject of the protest, as text, according to the sourced article in LexisNexis. 2
Protest Organizing Group Group or political party that organized protest, if listed, according to sourced article in LexisNexis. Presented as text. Protest Outside of Minsk One if protest was outside of Minsk (minority of all protests), zero otherwise. Protest Carried out by Economic Group One if protest was carried out by economic group (i.e. a trade union or non-political workers organization), zero otherwise. Official Holidays Days of the year that are celebrated as official holidays in Belarus: January 1 (New Year s Day), January 7 (Orthodox Christmas), January 14 (Orthodox New Year s Day), March 8(Women s Day), March 15 (Constitution Day), May 1 (Labor Day), May 9 (Victory Day), July 3 (Independence Day), November 2 (Dsuady), November 7 (October Revolution Day), December 25 (Christmas Day). Obtained from Earth Calendar. Days since Last Election Number of days that have passed since last election day. Counter resets after each election day. Days since last Presidential Election Number of days that have passed since the last presidential election. Counter resets after each presidential election day. Unofficial Holidays Days of the year that are celebrated unofficially by the opposition: Freedom Day, commemorating the creation of the Belarusian republic in 1918; Union Day, on the anniversary of the Union Treaty between Russia and Belarus, the anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster, and a Day of Remembrance for victims of World War II, on the date of the Nazi invasion in 1941. All other days coded as zero, these days coded as one. 3
Number of Protest Participants Number of individuals participating during protest according to sourced articles in Lexis- Nexis. Exposure Natural log of Number of Protest Participants. No Protest Days, Squared and Cubed Three variables corresponding to (Carter & Signorino 2010) s method for controlling for duration dependence through cubic polynomials. No protest is a time trend variable for consecutive days without protest. The following two variables are that variable squared and cubed. Splines 1-3 Three cubic splines to control for duration dependence using (Beck, et al. 1998) s method. Log Days since Last Election Natural log of the number of days that have passed since last election day. Counter resets after each election day. Days since last Presidential Election Natural log of the number of days that have passed since the last presidential election. Counter resets after each presidential election day. Citation for Using this Data Please feel free to use this data in any form in your research. Please cite as Konstantin Ash. 2014. The Election Trap: The Cycle of Post-electoral Repression and Opposition Fragmentation in Lukashenko s Belarus, Democratization. References N. Beck, et al. (1998). Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable. American Journal of Political Science 42(4):1260 1288. 4
D. B. Carter & C. S. Signorino (2010). Back to the Future: Modeling Time Dependence in Binary Data. Political Analysis 18(3):271 292. 5