The Consortium of National Election Studies has many synergies with the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) project.
What does CNES do?
- CNES is a network of national elections studies (NES)
- CNES promotes the development of common standards of data collection, and the sharing of data, knowledge, experiences and best practices in the field of NES.
- CNES sets out to: a) create a platform for openly sharing metadata and contextual information on NES; b) develop a comparative, post-harmonised CNES dataset; c) reinforce mutual exchange and knowledge sharing across NES through public events, such as the CNES Seminar Series.
What does CSES do?
- CSES is a collaborative research program of election studies from around the world.
- Participating election study programs include a common module of survey questions in their post-election surveys. The common module is developed by an international committee of leading experts in electoral research.
- The collected data are merged into a single, publicly available comparative dataset.
How are CNES and CSES similar?
- CNES and CSES both commit to the advancement of scientific research on electoral behavior and to making national election study data interoperable.
- To achieve this, both organizations promote data sharing and the development of common standards for data collections. CSES engages primarily in ex-ante harmonization of data collections (CSES), while CNES focuses their activities on reinforcing cooperation and exchange across NES, for instance by providing a forum for exploring the development of future joint standards of electoral data collection.
- Both CNES and CSES foster a culture of openly sharing data and metadata.
- Both organizations contribute to the institutionalization of national election study programs across countries and regions.
How are CNES and CSES different?
- CSES engages in ex-ante data harmonization by producing a joint instrument of data collection. The production of a CSES comparative dataset also requires ex-post data harmonization to some extent, for instance regarding sociodemographic information.
- CNES does not engage in data collection efforts through a joint questionnaire. Instead, CNES pursues ex-post data harmonization of national election study data and aims to create a comparative CNES data file that harmonizes previously collected data beyond the CSES module and across existing comparative data collections (such as CSES, True European Voter, West European Voter, and so on).
In which domains do CNES and CSES collaborate?
- We encourage cross-national collaborations
- We support the stabilization and institutionalization of NES, including the establishment of new NES in countries without an active election study program
- We collaborate on network development
- We share and disseminate best practices in the field of election studies
- We engage in joint communication initiatives and events
- We collaborate on training initiatives
