Country & Organization Leader Travel

The Diplometrics Program has built and released databases on international organizations, diplomatic exchange (embassies), and treaties monitored by the United Nations, including the Country & Organization Leader Travel Database (COLT). The Diplometrics Program has also developed tools to help visualize and structure the data, such as the UN Voting Coincidence Dashboard. This data feeds a research agenda that is interested in measuring and modeling international relations and will inform the International Politics submodule of the International Futures (IFs) model.

The project expects to add to this data collection effort by producing data sets on non-state actors including international non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations, and others.
 

• Why was the COLT Database created?

  Identifying the foreign travel of heads of government and state is a key component of understanding the policy interests of countries, geopolitical relationships, and international power dynamics. The COLT Database seeks to provide novel data measuring travel events for heads of government and state, as well as a number of select intergovernmental organization leaders and key ministers of select states.

• What is the goal of the COLT project?

  The goal of the COLT project is to construct a database of foreign travel by Heads of Government and State (HOGS) for over 200 countries from 1990 through the present. Travel by foreign and defense ministers (sub-HOGS) is coded from 1990 to the present for the United States, Russia, and China, and from 2018 through the present for all foreign, defense, and finance minister-equivalents for all Group of 20 member countries.

• How is data collected for the COLT project?

  The COLT Database collects information from a broad sample of source material, recording all HOGS international travel, while also providing information that can help users evaluate the nature and aims of these visits. The Database consists of three unique leader-centric datasets: travel, biographical information, and education. While COLT is currently a proprietary dataset, we hope to soon share these data publicly.