--- title: "PLOVER Political Events" description: "Explore 88 PLOVER political-event categories and example usages separating threats, sanctions, strikes and concessions across geopolitical and policy episodes." url: "https://nosible.com/ontologies/plover" --- [Home](https://nosible.com/) [Ontologies](https://nosible.com/ontologies) PLOVER Ontology field guide By NOSIBLE Research Updated 2026-07-18 # PLOVER Political Events PLOVER converts political interactions into comparable event classes, actions and contextual qualifiers through time across markets. Political risk changes through actions, not sentiment alone. Consultation, threats, sanctions, mobilisation and assault represent different interactions with different economic channels. PLOVER standardises those actions into event classes, event-specific modes and independent contexts. [[ 1 ]](https://github.com/openeventdata/PLOVER/blob/master/PLOVER_MANUAL.pdf) [[ 2 ]](https://doi.org/10.2307/2010532) World applies PLOVER to canonical events so researchers can measure escalation, support, coercion and de-escalation through time. Those features can be joined point in time to exposed firms, currencies, commodities and sovereign risk. This page provides the complete structure, World counts, a Russia-Ukraine sequence and reproducible data for testing political actions against market exposures. [[ 3 ]](https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20191823) [[ 4 ]](https://doi.org/10.20955/wp.2022.032) Categories 88 categories Structure 2 levels World events labelled 11.3% Stable codes Since v1 Release data CC0 On this page [01 Foundations](https://nosible.com/ontologies/plover#foundations) [02 Categories](https://nosible.com/ontologies/plover#vocabulary) [03 Example usages](https://nosible.com/ontologies/plover#trends) [04 Downloads and references](https://nosible.com/ontologies/plover#downloads) Foundations ## PLOVER records political actions while leaving severity and escalation unranked by design PLOVER defines 16 political event classes. Modes refine an event only where the specification permits them. Contexts are independent qualifiers that can accompany any class. The structure preserves the difference between verbal pressure, material coercion, support, consultation and armed action without forcing every episode onto one continuous score. [[ 1 ]](https://github.com/openeventdata/PLOVER/blob/master/PLOVER_MANUAL.pdf) World classifies the action described in an event record. It does not identify a causal actor-target pair, verify intent or reconstruct every interaction in a campaign. A report can contain several actions while the event receives one selected path. Researchers should test class composition and transitions before estimating any scalar escalation measure. [[ 2 ]](https://doi.org/10.2307/2010532) Categories ## Sixteen event classes combine with conditional modes and independent political contexts PLOVER contains 88 categories: 16 event classes, 35 event-specific modes and 37 independent contexts. Event classes and contexts are roots; allowed modes sit beneath their event. The explorer preserves those rules and exposes definitions, paths and World V1.2 counts. World assigns PLOVER to 1,731,529 events, or 11.3% of the corpus. [[ 1 ]](https://github.com/openeventdata/PLOVER/blob/master/PLOVER_MANUAL.pdf) Search code, label, definition or path 53 shown · 88 total Labelled events **1,731,529** World coverage **11.3%** All World events **15,311,040** 1,731,529 of 15,311,040 World events carry labels from PLOVER Political Events. Select a category to see its count and both relevant shares. Hierarchy event / mode / context AGREE Declared consensus or completed agreement + CONSULT Dialogue and policy coordination · 4 children SUPPORT Political or material backing CONCEDE Abandonment of a prior demand COOPERATE Sustained joint action AID Transfer of resources or expertise + RETREAT Withdrawal from a position or engagement · 6 children + REQUEST Explicit call for another actor to act · 4 children + ACCUSE Attribution of fault or wrongdoing · 3 children + REJECT Refusal of a proposal or demand · 4 children + THREATEN Declared prospective harm or coercion · 6 children PROTEST Public opposition and collective dissent + SANCTION Economic or administrative restriction · 4 children + MOBILIZE Preparation or deployment of organised capacity · 4 children COERCE Material compulsion short of assault ASSAULT Direct physical attack asylum AGREE ### AGREE Copy link #### Definition Political actors reach, ratify or publicly commit to an agreement. Potential research use Declared consensus or completed agreement Code AGREE Events with label 37,295 Share of labelled 2.2% Share of World 0.2% **Events with label** is the selected count. **Label share** divides it by 1,731,529 assigned events; **World share** divides it by all 15,311,040 events. #### Representative World V1.2 events One strong classified example per available year, with up to ten years shown. 10 examples 1. 2015-11-02China France Agree on Climate Compliance Checks for Paris DealCoverage 22 2. 2016-02-17Saudi Arabia Russia Qatar Venezuela Agree to Freeze Oil OutputCoverage 126 3. 2017-11-19Gujarat Congress and PAAS agree on Patel reservation ahead of pollsCoverage 78 4. 2019-06-10G20 Ministers Agree to Finalize Global Digital Tax Rules by 2020Coverage 27 5. 2020-07-20NFL and Players Union Agree on Daily COVID-19 Testing ProtocolsCoverage 215 6. 2021-10-06Biden and Xi Agree to Abide by Taiwan Agreement Amid Rising TensionsCoverage 84 7. 2022-11-25India and GCC agree to resume free trade agreement negotiationsCoverage 54 8. 2024-10-21India China Agree on LAC Patrolling to Enable Disengagement in LadakhCoverage 748 9. 2025-05-16NATO Members Agree to 5% GDP Defense Spending Target by June SummitCoverage 80 10. 2026-06-13US and Iran Agree to Peace Deal Wording to End WarCoverage 6,631 Browse categories to compare definitions, World V1.2 statistics and representative classified events. Example usage 1 of 3 ### Example Usage: Russia–Ukraine invasion raises sanctions as threats fall during the opening phase The cohort requires a Russian and Ukrainian actor in the same canonical event. Normalized coverage rises from 873 events per million World events before 24 February 2022 to 25,515 during the opening invasion. This controls for the changing size of the World corpus and isolates the relative reporting shock. [[ 6 ]](https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4051033/files/A_78_PV.56-EN.pdf) The opening invasion changes the action mix. Sanction rises from 9.8% to 18.1% of assigned events, while Threaten falls from 20.7% to 12.1%. Mobilize falls from 19.4% to 10.1%, while Assault rises from 0.4% to 2.2%. The labels distinguish implemented pressure and material action from pre-invasion rhetoric. [[ 4 ]](https://doi.org/10.20955/wp.2022.032) [[ 5 ]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfj.2023.100925) Normalized coverage **873 to 25515** Sanction share **9.8% to 18.1%** Threat share **20.7% to 12.1%** **Sanctions rise as threats fall after Russia invades Ukraine** 60-day memory · share of assigned events sanction threaten mobilize assault The cohort requires a Russian and Ukrainian actor in the same canonical event. Coverage divides those events by all World events in each phase. Action shares divide by PLOVER-assigned cohort events. The opening invasion raises normalized coverage from 873 to 25,515 per million events. Sanction rises from 9.8% to 18.1%, while Threaten falls from 20.7% to 12.1%. The comparison describes the event record; it does not measure battlefield intensity. Example usage 2 of 3 ### Example Usage: UAW action labels clearly separate threatened disruption from actual strike activity United Auto Workers reporting changes when the stand-up strike begins on 15 September 2023. Threaten accounts for 47.6% of assigned actions before the walkout and falls to 9.1% during the strike. Protest rises from 14.3% to 39.4%, separating bargaining pressure from realized action across Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. [[ 7 ]](https://uaw.org/uaw-president-shawn-fain-announces-stand-up-strike-begin-three-locations/) The transition creates a production-risk clock. Threats affect strike probability and contingency planning; Protest marks active disruption to plants, suppliers and inventories. PLOVER aligns automakers and exposed suppliers to reported action before tests of deliveries, margins, revisions or relative returns. [[ 1 ]](https://github.com/openeventdata/PLOVER/blob/master/PLOVER_MANUAL.pdf) Threaten -38.5pp Protest +25.1pp Mobilize +4.3pp Normalized coverage +67 per million Twenty-eight-day pooled share of PLOVER-assigned UAW events · % Threaten Protest Mobilize The fixed English cohort requires UAW or United Auto Workers plus an automaker, strike, contract or wage term from 15 August through 15 December 2023. The chart shows 29 August through 20 November. Lines pool action counts across the current and prior 27 days, then divide by all PLOVER-assigned cohort events across the full contract-negotiation and strike window for direct phase comparison. Example usage 3 of 3 ### Example Usage: Concessions replace threats after the 2023 debt-ceiling agreement reduces immediate default risk The 2023 United States debt-ceiling cohort changes action class when an agreement becomes credible on 27 May. Threaten accounts for 56.2% of 89 negotiation-phase events and falls to 17.6% around agreement. Concede rises from 7.9% to 58.8%, identifying compromise before the Fiscal Responsibility Act is signed. [[ 8 ]](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/27/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-bipartisan-budget-agreement/) That distinction separates default-risk bargaining from resolution. A debt-ceiling keyword remains present in both phases while the reported action changes. PLOVER creates a point-in-time clock for testing Treasury-bill dislocations, yields, volatility and cross-asset hedges without using the final agreement to relabel prior observations. [[ 1 ]](https://github.com/openeventdata/PLOVER/blob/master/PLOVER_MANUAL.pdf) Threaten -38.6pp Concede +50.9pp Reject -13.2pp Twenty-one-day pooled share of PLOVER-assigned debt-ceiling events · % Concede Threaten Reject The fixed English cohort requires United States debt-ceiling or debt-limit language from April through July 2023. The chart shows 1 May through 15 June. Lines pool PLOVER action counts across the current and prior 20 days, then divide by all assigned cohort events. The agreement window contains 17 assigned events, so the transition remains descriptive rather than a causal market result from broad news volume. Data and sources ## Download PLOVER and References ### Downloads Download categories and counts as CSV, or the complete machine-readable release as JSON. [**CSV** Definitions and counts Download ↓](https://nosible.com/data/world-v1.2/ontologies/plover/v1/nodes.csv) [**JSON** Full machine-readable release Download ↓](https://nosible.com/data/world-v1.2/ontologies/plover/v1/statistics.json) Release details and citation files [Manifest](https://nosible.com/data/world-v1.2/ontologies/plover/v1/manifest.json) [Release README](https://nosible.com/data/world-v1.2/ontologies/plover/v1/README.md) [CC0 license and scope](https://nosible.com/data/world-v1.2/ontologies/plover/v1/LICENSE.md) [Citation file](https://nosible.com/data/world-v1.2/ontologies/plover/v1/CITATION.cff) [Changelog](https://nosible.com/data/world-v1.2/ontologies/plover/v1/CHANGELOG.md) Need the complete World event schema? [Open the World data dictionary.](https://nosible.com/data-dictionaries#world) ### References 1. [ 1 ][Open Event Data Alliance. PLOVER: Political Language Ontology for Verifiable Event Records.](https://github.com/openeventdata/PLOVER/blob/master/PLOVER_MANUAL.pdf) 2. [ 2 ][Goldstein, J. S. (1992). A conflict-cooperation scale for WEIS events data. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 36(2), 369-385.](https://doi.org/10.2307/2010532) 3. [ 3 ][Caldara, D., & Iacoviello, M. (2022). Measuring geopolitical risk. American Economic Review, 112(4), 1194-1225.](https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20191823) 4. [ 4 ][Neely, C. J. (2022). Financial market reactions to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper 2022-032.](https://doi.org/10.20955/wp.2022.032) 5. [ 5 ][Zaremba, A. et al. (2024). Empirical effects of sanctions and support measures on stock prices and exchange rates in the Russia-Ukraine war. Global Finance Journal, 59, 100925.](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfj.2023.100925) 6. [ 6 ][United Nations General Assembly. (2024). Official Records, 78th Session, 56th Plenary Meeting. A/78/PV.56.](https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4051033/files/A_78_PV.56-EN.pdf) 7. [ 7 ][United Auto Workers. (2023). Stand Up Strike begins at three locations.](https://uaw.org/uaw-president-shawn-fain-announces-stand-up-strike-begin-three-locations/) 8. [ 8 ][The White House. (2023). Statement on the bipartisan budget agreement, 27 May 2023.](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/27/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-bipartisan-budget-agreement/) Continue exploring ## Complementary ontologies [231 categories World Geography Locate political actions and trace how escalation moves across countries and regions. Explore ontology →](https://nosible.com/ontologies/geography) [186 categories UN Sustainable Development Goals Connect policy action to the economic, social and environmental targets it is intended to change. Explore ontology →](https://nosible.com/ontologies/sustainable-development-goals) > Explore 88 PLOVER political-event categories and example usages separating threats, sanctions, strikes and concessions across geopolitical and policy episodes. **URL:** https://nosible.com/ontologies/plover