Since 1979, the Manifesto Research Group (MRG) has been collecting and coding election programs with the aim of estimating policy preferences of political parties. Detailed descriptions of this project can be found in Budge et al. (1987, 2001), Laver and Budge (1992), and Klingemann et al. (1994). During the first phase of the project, while the classification scheme was being developed, each group member was responsible for his or her own data collection. Reliability and validity of content analytic procedures had been secured through intensive group discussions. The second phase of the project started in 1989. In the context of its 'Comparative Manifestos Project' (CMP), the Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB) provided resources for updating and expanding the MRG data. Coders are now hired to do the content analysis according to this coding handbook. The handbook describes in detail how to select the documents, how to identify the coding units, and how to apply the classification scheme. A reliability test given in the handbook is used for training coders.
