Five High-Profile Research Programmes
A significant part of the research at the Department of Political Science is conducted within one of our five major research programmes. It is internationally recognized research on voters and elections, corruption and the quality of government, democracy and democratization, governance and local development, as well as studies on large-scale collective action.
Our high-profile research on elections, voters and Swedish representative democracy has evolved over all of six decades. Since 1956, for each of Sweden’s national elections, referenda, and the elections for the European Parliament, we have conducted a National Election Study as part of the Swedish National Election Studies Programme. The purpose of the studies conducted within SNES is to better understanding of how Swedish representative democracy is functioning. Why do voters cast their votes as they do? And why do elections have the outcomes they have? SNES holds regular breakfast seminars with invited international and national guest lecturers on questions related to elections.
The QoG Institute is one of the world’s biggest research centres in the field of corruption and the quality of government. The research focuses on corruption and the importance of trustworthy, impartial, uncorrupted, non-discriminatory and competent public institutions. How can we create and maintain high-quality political institutions? We study the effects of governance on a range of policy areas such as health, the environment, social policy and poverty. QoG holds regular lunchtime seminars with invited international and national guest lecturers on questions related to corruption.
Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is an international research collaboration that has developed a new, multidimensional approach to measure democracy as objectively and accurately as possible. V-Dem looks at principles of democracy that are far more complex than the mere presence of free and fair elections. We distinguish between five different principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative and egalitarian. V-Dem holds regular lunchtime seminars with invited international and national guest lecturers on questions related to the relationship between democracy and development.
Why are some societies able to provide safe and secure environments, good education, adequate health care and other factors that promote human development while others fail to do so? Governance and Local Development Institute (GLD) focuses on the local factors driving governance and development. The program is dedicated to international collaboration and scientifically rigorous, policy-relevant research in an effort to promote human welfare globally. Program findings are made available to the international and domestic communities through academic publications, policy briefs, public presentations, and social media, as well as on-the-ground workshops in cooperation with local partners.
CeCAR is an interdisciplinary project started in 2016 as part of the University of Gothenburg´s big focus on global social challenges: UGOT Challenges. Our research aims to contribute knowledge about the mechanisms behind voluntary and regulated, large-scale collective action. CeCAR holds regular lunchtime seminars with invited international and national guest lecturers on questions related to collective action.
