Witold Henisz (Wharton) has just released the latest update to his POLCON (political constraint) index, which includes data up through 2012. The previous (2010) release included data only up through 2007. The POLCON data uses a spatial modeling technique to synthesize a number of variable characterizing the structures and ideological alignments of countries’ political system, including the number and types of veto points and the party control (and fractionalization) of different government bodies.
The data are made available for no fee except the promise of an appropriate citation. The 2013 release is available for download in both STAT and Microsoft Excel formats and a code book is provided.
This index is an excellent resource for scholars interested in cross-country comparisons that take into account political uncertainty, and Henisz has been doing the academic community a great public service in maintaining and updating this resources since its inception.