Making Electoral Democracy Work is an international collaborative project that brings together an exceptional team of economists, political scientists, and psychologists from Canada, Europe, and the United States to undertake the most ambitious study ever undertaken of the impact of electoral rules on the functioning of democracy. It is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The study is looking at 26 elections in five countries. It has three inter-related components:
- An analysis of party strategies through a content analysis of campaigns materials, as well as semi-directed interviews with campaign managers, in each of the 26 elections covered;
- An analysis of voter behavior through internet panel surveys of the same voters in all of these elections;
- A series of laboratory experiments designed to complement the analyses of party strategies and voter behaviour
Get involved
We want to foster a dialogue with the policy community and civil society organizations about our results and their implications for the design of electoral institutions. We plan to organize an international symposium on the challenges of electoral democracy, to be held in 2015, in order to stimulate an open discussion of proposals for institutional reform to enhance the performance of contemporary democracies.
Are you a member of a political party or work for an NGO that is interested in getting involved in the project? Please contact the project’s leader André Blais.
Blog
Get the latest research outputs, activities, and informed comments of our members in our blog dedicated to researchers, journalists, and citizens.
