EQUAL-REP is led by Melanie M. Hughes (University of Pittsburgh) and Elin Bjarnegård (Uppsala University), with foundational contributions from Jackie F. Steele. Together, the project team brings expertise in comparative politics, electoral institutions, gender and ethnic politics, and the construction of complex cross-national datasets.

EQUAL-REP uses a longitudinal, historically grounded approach to document ethnic representation policies from country independence through 2025. We track when policies are adopted, when they are first implemented, how they change, and when they end. Our coding distinguishes among five policy types: reserved seats, vote-threshold relaxations, protected autonomous-territory representation, candidate-list requirements, and majority-minority districts.

EQUAL-REP has been developed with support from universities, academics, practitioners, and students committed to advancing the study of political inclusion. We are grateful for the intellectual, institutional, and research assistance that has helped make this dataset possible. A list of our contributers and funders is available here.