(1) identification variables num: observation id number (1-18645) sttid: state id (1-65) demid: democracy id (1-74) flag: indicates the beginning of each democracy ccode: three-digit country code from polity scode: three-letter country code from polity country: country name year: year month: month (2) goverment composition data gci: government change index, varies from 0 to 100 (-7 means caretaker government; -8 means the country became non-democratic; -9 means either it reached the end of observation in December 1998 or the political system became neither parliamentary nor presidential) cep: chief executive's party, 1 if CEP changed, 0 otherwise (-7, -8, and -9 are same as above) (3) institutional type exeleg: executive-legislative relationship 0--Presidential 1--Parliamentary Systems that are neither presidential nor parliamentary are excluded from the analysis. We consulted Siaroff (2003) and Golder (2004) for the classification. (4) other variables tlim: whether the current chief executive is able to run for re-election. 0 if ok, 1 if not. term: the length of term of the president if exeleg==0; the length of term of the legislators if exeleg==1