Table of contents

About the project

Overview

Aims

Outputs

Legislation

Election results

[Candidate Data]

Useful Links

Background and overview

The Project on Political Transformation and the Electoral Process in Post-Communist Europe is part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s ‘One Europe or Several?’ research programme. The project is based in the Department of Government at Essex and will run for three years. 

The research will investigate how different aspects of the electoral system affect democratic performance and the process of political reform in post-communist Europe. The role of electoral systems will be identified and explained by refining and testing empirical models derived from the study of electoral systems in established democracies. A variety of historical, comparative and quantitative methods will be employed to carry out analyses of the role of competitive elections in the process of democratisation and their effects on democratic performance, defined as the expression of popular preferences, representativeness, and policy responsiveness. The investigation will focus on a set of nineteen Central European, South-East European, and former Soviet countries. It will assess the varying impacts of different types of electoral system, comprising formulae for the conversion of votes into seats, participation criteria, and the regulations governing candidates and campaigns.

Aims

The principal aim of the project is to explain the role of electoral systems in the process of democratisation in post-communist Europe. Objectives linked to the overall aim are both conceptual and practical:

(a) to advance the theoretical understanding of elections by expanding the range of dependent and independent variables incorporated into their comparative analysis;

(b) to explain the extent to which theoretical and empirical findings from Western Europe do or do not apply to the newly democratising countries;

(c) to advise those in positions to influence the drafting of electoral laws on the variety of alternatives at their disposal and the likely consequences of adopting them;

(d) to increase access to data on Eastern European elections since 1989 and thus to facilitate independent analysis by other researchers and electoral designers.

Outputs and dissemination

We envisage a three-pronged strategy for interacting with users and communicating the results of the project to them:

• An on-line database of electorally-relevant laws from throughout Eastern Europe and electoral results from the 19 countries. The database will include a compendium of fully annotated laws, searchable by country, subject, and time period, as well as a bank of electoral results. Interactive manipulation of these datasets will be possible through the Website. Additional information on candidates and campaign activities will supplement the electoral results.

• Academic outputs, including conference presentations, one or more collaborative monographs, and a series of specialist articles in areas of interest to the individual researchers.

The researchers will also actively seek to engage in relevant training and consultancy as and when suitable opportunities arise.

Researchers

Dr. Frances Millard

Department of Government, University of Essex, Project Director

Dr. Sarah Birch

Department of Government, University of Essex

Dr. Kieran Williams

School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London

Marina Popescu

Department of Government, University of Essex, Research Officer