Pennsylvania Policy Database Project

Abstract

The Pennsylvania Policy Database Project is the first sub-national digital archive within the Comparative Agendas Project. It provides a wide range of government documents, public opinion records, and media data going back as far as 1979. This chapter provides a historical overview and the general political context to the government system of Pennsylvania. In addition to the information available at the Comparative Agendas Project websites, the Pennsylvania Policy Database Project website maintains further extensive supplementary datasets on Pennsylvania. To provide an example of how this data can be used, the chapter concludes with an analysis of drinking water safety records and how this policy area relates to natural gas fracking policies in Pennsylvania.