THE 2005 BES POST-ELECTION AND
PRE-CAMPAIGN-POST-ELECTION PANEL DATA
UPDATED RELEASE WITH NATCEN WEIGHTS:
AUGUST 10, 2005
Post-Election
data file-SPSS zip
Post-Election
data file-Stata zip
Post-Election questionnaire (requires Adobe Acrobat)
Pre-Campaign
and Post-Election Panel Data Memo (requires Adobe Acrobat)
Note
on sampling and weighting procedures
(requires Adobe Acrobat)
This
updated release of the 2005 BES post-election and pre-campaign-post-election
panel data
contains 'Natcen weights'. These data were gathered by in-person
CAPI interviews. Fieldwork
was conducted by the National Centre for Social Research
(NATCEN) under the supervision of
Research Director, Katarina Thomson. This release of the data
should be treated as a "beta"
version. Further coding, cleaning and checking will take place
over the next few months, and
enhanced versions of these and other 2005 BES data will be
posted on the website as soon as
possible. Later versions will also contain variables from the
mailback questionnaire that was
administered to all post-election respondents. Re: the present
data, please note the following:
1. Data
Files: The data files
are in SPSS and STATA formats. One file is an SPSS file called
SPSS0810.SAV, and the other is a STATA file called STAT0810.DTA.
Download one of these
files. Users requring the data in other formats can contact
Harold Clarke (hclarke@utdallas.edu)
for assistance. Alternatively, they can use a program such as
DBMS COPY or STAT
TRANSFER to translate one of the present files into the format
needed.
2. Sample
sizes: The
pre-campaign and post-election cross-sectional surveys use samples of
people 18 years of age or older drawn from the British postcode
address file. There are
substantial booster samples for Scotland and Wales. The
unweighted N for the entire post-election
sample = 4161. The post-election sample contains a
pre-campaign-post election panel
with a sample size = 2959, as well as a post-election only
"topup", N = 1202. The N for the pre-campaign
survey is 3589.
3. Filter:
The data files contain a filter variable called WAVE which will enable users to
select
the pre-campaign cross-section sample, the post-election
cross-section sample, and the pre-campaign-
post-election panel.
4. Weights:
(i) Pre-Election cross-section: PREWTBR =
weight for Great Britain; PREWTEN = weight for
England; PREWTSC = weight for Scotland; PREWTWA = weight for
Wales. (ii)
5. Variable
Names: Except for
miscellaneous technical variables, variable naames reference
question numbers in the pre-campaign and post-election surveys.
Pre-campaign variable names
start with the letter "A," and post-election variable
names start with the letter "B." For example,
the variable name AQ1 refers to a variable based on responses to
question 1 in the pre-campaign
survey, and BQ1 refers to a variable based on responses to
question 1 in the
post-election
survey.
6. Summary
Variables: These
variables summarize information using basic variables in the
data set. In the present release, summary variables for the
pre-campaign survey include: (i)
AMISTOT -- all responses for most important issue facing the
country; (ii) APARTYID,
ACLOSEID, ACLOSEW and ASPID -- variables for responses to the traditional BES
party
identification battery; (iii) APTYSUP and APTYSUPW -- variables
for an alternative ("party
supporter") measure of partisanship. Comparable most
important issue (BQ2MISZ) and party
identification variables (BPARTYID, BCLOSEID, BCLOSEW, and BSPID)
have beeen
constructed for the post-election data. There are also several
variables starting with the letter "T"
that combine demographic information from the pre-campaign and
post-election surveys.
7. Questionnaires:
The pre-campaign and post-election questionnaires can be downloaded from
the BES website.
8. Comments,
Questions, Problems?
Please contact a member of the BES team:
David Sanders: sanders@essex.ac.uk (not available during August)
Paul Whiteley: whiteley@essex.ac.uk
Harold Clarke: hclarke@utdallas.edu
Marianne Stewart: mstewart@utdallas.edu
Kristi Winters: kwinte@essex.ac.uk
The BES office telephone number at the University of Essex is:
01206 873346
The British Election Study 
