What You Use Matters: Coding Protest Data

Data matter. Protest data are no exception. Not all datasets are equal, nor do all have equal validity and reliability. Thus far, there has been no serious debate regarding the quality of protest datasets. Increasing attention to protest studies suggests that now is the time to talk about the sine qua non for growing knowledge in this sub-field of comparative politics. In this paper I emphasize the importance of the underlying data sources. In...