Vanderbilt University’s Center for Global Democracy is the new U.S. institutional home for the Comparative Study of Election Surveys, a leading global resource for understanding elections and democratic governance. This move strengthens Vanderbilt’s leadership in global democracy research, building on three decades of international collaborations and the CSES’s reputation as the premier source of comparative electoral survey data.
The CSES (formerly the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems) operates as an international partnership. The project’s administration is equally managed by CGD at Vanderbilt and GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Germany. The collaboration was recently renewed with a five-year agreement that strengthened the long-standing partnership supporting the CSES’s global operations. Together, these institutions provide the expertise and administrative support necessary for the CSES to function seamlessly.
“The CSES is a cornerstone for understanding how elections work and how citizens engage with democracy,” said Noam Lupu, director of the Center for Global Democracy and the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor in Social and Natural Sciences. “Bringing the U.S. operations of the CSES to Vanderbilt strengthens our capacity to advance rigorous, policy-relevant research on democracy worldwide.”
Founded in 1994 at the University of Michigan’s Center of Political Studies, the CSES brings researchers and institutions from more than 60 countries together to collect and harmonize post-election survey data. Over the years, the global project has received financial support in the U.S. from the National Science Foundation, which has helped sustain its international survey work and maintain its high-quality datasets. By combining individual survey responses with macro-level contextual data, the CSES enables researchers to examine how political institutions and contexts influence voting behavior. Its datasets are freely accessible and have been cited in thousands of scholarly publications, influencing discussions on electoral reform and democratic accountability worldwide.
Moving the CSES to Vanderbilt aligns with CGD’s existing strengths in international survey research, most notably its flagship AmericasBarometer project. Together, these initiatives position Vanderbilt as a global hub for comparative research on democracy.
As part of the transition, Mariana Rodríguez, CGD’s director of research and engagement, will succeed David Howell as director of studies for the CSES. Under Howell’s more than 20 years of leadership, the CSES evolved into a premier resource for comparative electoral research by maintaining high scientific standards while fostering collaboration across continents. CGD’s research staff will support the project, contributing expertise in survey methodology and international research coordination.
While Vanderbilt will now serve as the CSES’s new institutional home in the U.S., the project is a global collaboration. National research teams fund and conduct electoral surveys in their respective countries, while an elected Planning Committee of scholars guides the design of each project module. CGD will work with GESIS to ensure data quality, harmonization and broad dissemination.
The transition coincides with the completion of the CSES’s sixth module and the planning for Module 7, which will explore new questions on electoral behavior and democratic governance. Over the next five years, the project will generate original comparative data, foster global collaboration and provide insights that inform research and policy on elections and democratic governance worldwide.
“The Comparative Study of Election Surveys exemplifies the power of sustained international collaboration and open, high-quality data to deepen our understanding of democracy,” Provost C. Cybele Raver said. “By welcoming the CSES to Vanderbilt, we build on the Center for Global Democracy’s long-standing strengths in comparative research and reinforce our role as a global hub for scholarship that informs academic inquiry and public policy.”
