China's Foreign Policy Decision-Making
The PRC Elite Decision-Making Data Set contains information on the design and utilization of national security institutions in the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 1949. The data have two principal components:
See: "The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation in China's International Crises." International Security 48:1 (Summer 2023).
- Institutional Membership. These data identify the membership of key bodies in PRC foreign policy decision-making from 1949 to present: the Politburo, Secretariat, State Council, the Central Military Commission, the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group, the National Security Leading Small Group, and the Taiwan Leading Small Group. The data rely upon a variety of official and unofficial sources.
- Elite Meetings. These data catalogue over 5,000 foreign policy meetings attended by senior members of the Chinese Communist Party from 1949 to 1989. They include both formal meetings of key bodies, such as the Political Bureau and Central Military Commission, as well as informal foreign policy meetings between Mao Zedong, Hua Guofeng, and Deng Xiaoping and other party and bureaucratic elites. The data draw upon materials released by the CCP archives, specifically chronicles (年谱) of the daily activities of senior party leaders.
See: "The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation in China's International Crises." International Security 48:1 (Summer 2023).
China's Foreign Affairs and National Security Bureaucracy
The PRC Foreign Affairs Personnel Data Set contains biographical information on the background, experience, and professional appointments of senior members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 to present. This includes over 11,000 appointments of 1,357 individuals who held senior positions inside the PRC foreign affairs system.
See: "The Politics of Promotion in the Chinese Foreign Policy Bureaucracy." The China Quarterly, forthcoming.
The People's Liberation Army Data Set is a collaborative project with Daniel Mattingly that explores the career trajectories of 41,603 Chinese military officers who held the senior positions within the People's Liberation Army from 1927 to 2014. The data set includes over 145,000 organizational appointments held by these military elites.
See: "Networks of Coercion: Military Ties and Civilian Leadership Challenges in China." American Journal of Political Science. (April 2025). Early View.
See: "The Politics of Promotion in the Chinese Foreign Policy Bureaucracy." The China Quarterly, forthcoming.
The People's Liberation Army Data Set is a collaborative project with Daniel Mattingly that explores the career trajectories of 41,603 Chinese military officers who held the senior positions within the People's Liberation Army from 1927 to 2014. The data set includes over 145,000 organizational appointments held by these military elites.
See: "Networks of Coercion: Military Ties and Civilian Leadership Challenges in China." American Journal of Political Science. (April 2025). Early View.
Advisers and Foreign Policy Decision-Making in the United States
The Advisers and Foreign Policy Decision-Making Project is a collaborative effort with Joshua Kertzer, Eric Min, and Robert Schub to systematically study group decision-making in the United States by drawing upon roughly 650,000 pages of digitized documents collected from presidential libraries and archives. The data collection aspect of this project has three principal components:
See: "Advisers and Aggregation in Foreign Policy Decision-Making." International Organization 78:1 (Winter 2024).
- Transcripts of 793 meetings of the US National Security Council and 2,088 informal foreign policy meetings between US presidents and their advisers between 1947 and 1988; records are segmented by speaker with over 100,000 speech segments.
- Codings of 982 conflictual and cooperative decisions reached during these meetings.
- Accompanying biographical data (e.g. date of birth, gender, military service, government positions) on the 1,073 presidents and advisers who spoke during any meeting in the collection.
See: "Advisers and Aggregation in Foreign Policy Decision-Making." International Organization 78:1 (Winter 2024).
National Security Institutions Data Set
The National Security Institutions Data Set contains information on the institutions by which political leaders and national security bureaucracies interact with one another. Specifically, it codes institutional characteristics (e.g. bureaucratic representation, utilization, and executive oversight) of 852 decision-making and coordination bodies across 153 countries from 1946 to 2015. These data include not only well-known examples -- such as the US National Security Council, the UK Defense and Oversea Planning Committee, and the PRC National Security Commission -- but all known instances of national security councils and national security advisors across the globe since the end of World War II.
Image: Document from George H.W. Bush Presidential Library