The Political Constraint Index (POLCON), University of Pennsylvania

Summary

The POLCON measure, developed by Vice Dean and Faculty Director of the ESG Initiative Witold Henisz, is a quantitative measure of institutional constraints that uses a spatial model of political interaction and measures the feasibility of a change in policy given the structure of a nation’s political institutions.

Tables In IFs

Variable	Definition	Last IFs Update	UsedInPreprocessor
GovPolConstraintsMain	Measure of the amount of constraints on a leader through vetoes	2026/02/26	0
GovPolConstraintsPlus	Measure of the amount of constraints on a leader through vetoes (also vetoes from the judiciary and sub-federal actors)	2026/02/26	0

Data Pulling Instructions

1. Navigate to https://mgmt.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/heniszpolcon/polcondataset/
2. Click the most recent excel file (right now it is 2025 Data release (see Key Sheet for Variable Key including important updates to construction of veto point data)
3. Use the indicator POLCONIII_2025 for GovPolConstraintsMain and POLCONV_2025 for GovPolConstraintsPlus.

Data Notes

1. For country concordances only use "cnts_country" the other country columns are missing countries for certain rows.
2. There are countries that should be merged together such as:

Country	cnts-country
Yemen	YEMEN
	YEMEN AR
	YEMEN REP
	YEMEN PDR
Viet Nam	VIETNAM REP
	VIETNAM
Ethiopia	ABYSSINIA
	ETHIOPIA
	ETH'PIA PDR
Cote D'Ivoire	COTE D'IVOR
	IVORY COAST
Congo	CONGO
	CONGO (BRA)
	CONGO REP
	CONGO Republic