CSES Secretariat

Katharina Blinzler is a data processing specialist for CSES based in the Department of Survey Data Curation (SDC) at GESIS Köln, Germany. Katharina holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in political science from the University of Mannheim, Germany, and joined CSES in April 2018.

Katharina is responsible for processing CSES micro data, data documentation, collecting district data, data harmonization, data quality checks, online analysis tools, website content, archiving, and responding to user queries.

Katharina’s research interests are comparative politics and EU politics. Before joining the CSES Secretariat, Katharina worked as a data processing specialist for the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) at GESIS in Köln.

Mariana Rodríguez is Director of Studies for CSES and Director of Research & Engagement at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Global Democracy (CGD).

She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Vanderbilt University and is a survey research expert with over 15 years of experience managing cross-national survey projects at CGD and the LAPOP Lab. She has led innovations in instrument design, data collection methodologies, and data visualization, strengthening the lab’s ability to communicate research findings effectively to diverse audiences.

As CSES Director of Studies, Mariana serves as an ex-officio member of the CSES Planning Committee. She collaborates with the committee and the Secretariat team to advance CSES Modules and data products, liaising with national partners on module implementation, data dissemination, collaborator recruitment, project funding, and communications, promotion, and organization.

Armin Seimel is a Senior Researcher at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences and Project Manager of CSES.

His research focuses on European politics, democratic governance, and party competition. He previously held positions at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Glasgow.

Bojan Todosijević is macro data and data quality specialist for CSES and is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia. Bojan holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary (2006) and joined CSES in 2004, when he was a fellow at the Center for Political Studies (CPS) at the University of Michigan.

In his near 20-years with the Secretariat, Bojan has had various responsibilities including processing CSES micro data, data documentation, data harmonization, and data quality checks. Currently, his principal responsibility is the collecting and coding of macro data and data quality assurance.

Since 2012, he has been the CSES Collaborator for Serbia and most recently was a co-investigator of the CSES Module 5 study implemented in Hungary (2018), as well as serving as an advisor to various studies implementing CSES in the Balkan region.

His research focuses on the psychological underpinnings of political attitudes and behavior, and on politics in Serbia.

Robert Vidigal is a Statistician at the Center for Global Democracy and LAPOP Lab. Robert holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stony Brook University (SUNY, 2022). He collaborates with the CSES Secretariat team on CSES Modules data processing and data products development.

Before joining the CGD, Robert worked as a Data Scientist at the Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics (CSMAP) at New York University. His research has been published in scholarly journals such as Political Behavior, Political Communication, Applied Cognitive Psychology, Political Science Research and Methods, Political Research Quarterly, and other scholarly journals.

Slaven Živković earned his PhD in political science at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany, specializing in comparative political behavior. He works at DeFacto Consultancy, one of Montenegro’s leading research agencies.

His academic work focuses on studying the economic foundations of voting and the ways in which political systems influence individuals’ electoral decision-making.

Slaven has published in several international outlets in the field of political behavior analysis, including Party Politics, JEPOP, Comparative European Politics, and East European Politics and Societies, as well as several book chapters in volumes published by Routledge and Springer.