About the database
The ZEUS: The Global Database of Authoritarian Leaders is a comprehensive, open-access research platform developed at the University of Oxford. It catalogues over 100 authoritarian leaders from across the world since 1900, combining structured data on regime characteristics, political violence, and death toll estimates with a growing archive of primary source documents — from speeches and court records to government publications and intelligence reports.
The database is designed to support comparative research into the causes and dynamics of political violence under authoritarian rule. It enables researchers, students, policymakers, journalists, and practitioners to explore patterns across leaders, regions, ideologies, and time periods through interactive mapping, advanced filtering, and full-text search of primary source materials.
In partnership with
All data is curated by an interdisciplinary team of researchers and reviewed by an international Board of Data Advisors. The database integrates quantitative variables with qualitative source materials to enable both computational and interpretive approaches to the study of authoritarianism.
Directors
Dr Julia Ebner · Professor Harvey Whitehouse
Research assistants
Sophia Suganuma · Juliet Olivia Aze · Samantha Warfel · Elias Laurent · Arman Prangere
Doctoral researchers
Leonardo Goodall