The republic at the centennial: A new dataset of the entire population of legislators and their parliamentary activities in Turkey

29 October 2023 marked the centennial of the Republic of Turkey. Over the past hundred years, the country has undergone major institutional changes, experiencing periods of democracy and non-democracy, bicameralism and unicameralism, parliamentary and presidential systems, and majoritarian and proportional electoral systems. This unique range of changes provides excellent opportunities for studying various theoretically significant research questions. This article introduces a novel dataset encompassing the entire population of legislators and their parliamentary activities in Turkey over the last century. The dataset includes detailed information on (i) election results by districts, (ii) the sociodemographic and political backgrounds of 12,500 legislators, (iii) the frequency with which legislators made speeches, asked questions and introduced private members’ bills, and (iv) the content of these parliamentary activities (i.e., the policy area focus) from the period of 1920–2023. I demonstrate the usefulness of the data through descriptive analyses in three areas, political elites across space, political elites across time, and the patterns of policy prioritization in the parliament. I conclude by suggesting areas of research for future studies.