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Dear Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) User Community,
In order to begin the process of identifying a theme for CSES Module 6, a Task Force has been established to identify gaps in existing research that CSES Module 6 might address. As part of their work, the Task Force is to canvas possible substantive themes for the new module and questions that might be included in the resulting survey.
The purpose of this note is to ask you, as a member of the CSES user community, to suggest possible themes and questions that the Task Force should investigate for CSES Module 6.
While we will accept your ideas in any format, as many of the following items as possible should ideally be included in proposals:
- Title of proposal
- A brief overview of the proposal
- A brief discussion of the theory and broader literature that the proposal would contribute to
- A summary and/or links to previous national or comparative studies and findings
- A brief discussion of methodological issues, for instance regarding equivalence across countries
- A CV for each of the proposers
- It is not required to suggest specific survey questions that are relevant to the proposed theme, but it is encouraged. If questions are included as part of the proposal, please include any evidence from the questions having been previously tested elsewhere, as prior testing will make for a stronger application.
- Please also suggest any contextual/macro variables which would be necessary to include in the dataset in order to make full use of the proposed theme.
Survey questions which address as many as possible of the following criteria will be more favorably reviewed:
- The potential of the questions to significantly advance science
- The suitability of the theme for cross-national comparison and to be run in all participating nations, and not just for established democracies; for a list of nations which have previously participated in CSES please visit this link: http://www.cses.org/
electionstudies.htm - The theme being of broad interest to the scientific community, lending itself to a variety of different analyses and allowing for the writing of many papers.
- The ability of the theme to be adequately addressed within the length of a typical CSES module. A CSES module cannot be longer than 10-15 minutes in length. Of this, 5-8 minutes of questions in each module are core content and likely to be automatically repeated. Therefore, no more than 7-10 minutes of new questions are available to address the theme of the new module. Demographic and administrative questions do not typically county against this total. However, if there are specific questions from past CSES modules (administrative, demographic, or otherwise) which must be included to address the proposed theme, please mention which questions are required, as they may count against the minutes which are available. For a list of variables and questions which have appeared in past CSES modules, please visit the CSES website.
The CSES is a collaboration of election studies from around the world who volunteer their time and space on their surveys for our modules. Participating election studies must be willing and able to implement all of the content that is included in a CSES module. Any proposal containing specialized designs, for instance, experimental components, should address how the design is possible and feasible to implement across all election studies in a comparative, multi-mode, international setting, in addition to meeting each of the criteria mentioned above.
Please direct your proposals for consideration by the CSES Module 6 Task Force to the following email address: cses@umich.edu
Proposals received on or before February 28, 2019 will be presented for feedback and discussion at a meeting of the CSES Planning Committee in 2019. Feedback will be provided to all proposers as soon as possible thereafter.
Please be aware that questions may be adapted and modified by the CSES Planning Committee.
Data collection for CSES Module 6 is anticipated to begin sometime in 2021.
For more information about CSES, please visit our website at: http://www.cses.org/
Thank you in advance for your ideas, and for your support of the CSES project!