Who governs? This is one of the most fundamental questions in political science. Despite its importance, there was no global dataset on governing elites over a long period. Stuart Bramwell and I have created a novel dataset, WhoGov, which contains yearly data on members of cabinets in 177 countries during the period 1966-2023, making it the largest of its kind. The information on WhoGov has been moved to the project’s website found at https://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/our-research/research-centres/nuffield-politics-research-centre/whogov. We are currently working on adding further information related to the social background of ministers, see Paths to power: A new dataset on the social profile of governments.

We hosted a WhoGov workshop on the 29-30th of August 2024 at University of Oslo. We hope to host a workshop again in the late summer of 2025.

El Capitolio, Cuba