Welcome to the 'Comparative Study of Electoral Systems'
The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) is a collaborative program of research among election study teams from around the world. Participating countries include a common module of survey questions in their post-election studies.
The resulting data are deposited along with voting, socio-demographic, district and macro variables. Since 2009, GESIS has joined forces with the CSES secretariat in co-operation with the Center for Political Studies if the University of Michigan.to contribute to the production of high quality, free of charge, public datasets.
The CSES is composed of three tightly linked parts: First, a common module of public opinion survey questions is included in each participant country's post-election study. These "micro" level data include vote choice, candidate and party evaluations, current and retrospective economic evaluations, evaluation of the electoral system itself, in addition to standardized sociodemographic measures. Second, district level data are reported for each respondent, including electoral returns, turnout, and the number of candidates. Finally, system or "macro" level data report aggregate electoral returns, electoral rules and formulas, and regime characteristics. This design allows researchers to conduct cross-level, as well as cross-national analyses, addressing the effects of electoral institutions on citizens' attitudes and behavior, the presence and nature of social and political cleavages, and the evaluation of democratic institutions across different political regimes. Apart from the 'core' questions, each module covers a specific topic of current research in political science.
The research agenda, questionnaires, and study design are developed by an international committee of leading scholars of electoral politics and political science. The design is implemented in each country by their foremost social scientists.
Access to Data and Documentation
The free, integrated dataset, variables, codebooks and further documents are available via the GESIS search. Data is accessible as Stata, SPSS, CSV, SAS or R file. Further documents like field questionnaires, erata lists and further backgroundinformation about the CSES can be found on www.cses.org.
The CSES is also happy to cite all publications and presentations which make use of the CSES data. If you know any which is missing in the bibliography, please let us know through then online form.
GESIS Klingemann Prize
Each year, the CSES awards the GESIS Klingemann Prize for the best CSES scholarship (paper, book, dissertation, or other scholarly work). The award is sponsored by the GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences and is named in honor of Professor Dr. Hans-Dieter Klingemann, co-founder of the CSES, and an internationally renowned sociologist and political scientist who made significant contributions to cross-national electoral research. The prize was first awarded by the project in 2011.
Nominated works must make extensive use of CSES and have a publication date in the calendar year before the award, either in print or online. Anyone is allowed to nominate or self-nominate a scholarly work for consideration. All persons are eligible to receive the prize, except for the three persons that serve on the Selection Committee for the year.
A new Selection Committee is convened each year to decide the winner. It comprises one scholar who is a member of the CSES Planning Committee, a scholar nominated by the prize sponsor, the GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, and a leading scholar in the field of comparative electoral behavior and public opinion.
The award winner will receive a 1,000 Euros prize and be asked to present their winning work as a CSES Blog entry. The winner will also receive up to an additional 1,000 Euros toward travel, accommodation, and conference registration expenses to attend an in-person award ceremony in an upcoming year.
A list of the award winners and their works can be found on the CSES page.
The CSES Secretariat
The CSES Secretariat is the operational hub of the CSES project.
The CSES Secretariat is under the leadership of the Chair of the CSES Planning Committee and is led in day to day operations by the CSES Director of Studies and supported by the CSES Project Manager, both of whom serve as ex-officio members of the CSES Planning Committee. Current Secretariat staff can be found on the CSES website.
In the early years, the CSES Secretariat was a voluntary enterprise courtesy of the staff at the Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan. In 2001, NSF providing funding that institutionalized the CSES Secretariat. Since June 2011, the CSES Secretariat has been a collaboration between the GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Germany and the Center of Political Studies at the University of Michigan.
The responsibilities of the CSES Secretariat include:
- Supporting the CSES Planning Committee, the project’s governing board, in the development of CSES products and administration of the project.
- Managing the creation, development, and implementation of CSES data products and documentation.
- Liaising and supporting project collaborators in the implementation of the CSES in their national study.
- Collection and creation of the district and macro data components of CSES data.
- Harmonizing CSES data for comparative use and ensuring that study standards and data quality conventions are met.
- Archiving and preserving CSES data.
- Supporting the pre-testing of CSES modules.
- Organizing the project’s scientific meetings, project events, and CSES panels at international academic conferences.
- Monitoring the use of CSES data products.
- Responding to user queries.
- Promoting CSES and communicating with user community.
Contact the CSES Secretariat by cses(at)umich(dot)edu.
Newsletter, Social Networking and Contact
If you would like to get updated information and announcements on behalf of the CSES, you can join its newsletter or follow the project on Twitter or the new CSES Blog.
For further questions on the use of the CSES data, download precedures or documents, send an email to the CSES.