GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences: Go to homepage

Elections, Politics, and Political Behavior

Empirical elections and politics research looks at political behavior and the political attitudes of voters, parties and their members, and candidates. Political studies use complex survey designs that connect data from different sources (e.g. voters’ and candidates’ responses to survey) and different structures (e.g. cross-sectional or longitudinal surveys). GESIS offers one such complex study: the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES). In addition, GESIS hosts the Secretariat of the Comparative Study of Election Systems (CSES), with data collected from some 60 countries. It also grants researchers access to national and international survey programs like the Politbarometer or the European Election Study. Reflecting the principle of research-based data infrastructure GESIS employees –– conduct original research on these national and comparative studies. Staff specialties include: economic influence on vote choice (including wealth and ideological perceptions about economic redistribution); electoral and non-electoral participation; individual determinants of vote choice; and the impact of social media on voters, politicians, and political parties.

Learn more about our consulting and services:

  • Silber, Henning, Patricia Moy, Timothy P. Johnson, Rico Neumann, Sven Stadtmüller, and Lydia Repke. 2022. "Survey participation as a function of democratic engagement, trust in institutions, and perceptions of surveys." Social Science Quarterly 103 (7): 1619-1632. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.13218.
  • Navarrete, Rosa M., Christina Eder, Marc Debus, Harald Schoen, Chung-hong Chan, and Christof Wolf. 2022. digilog@bw—Dynamics of Participation in the Era of Digitalisation. doi: https://doi.org/10.7802/2390.
  • Eder, Christina, and Ann-Kathrin Reinl. 2022. "Auswirkungen europäischer Krisen auf politisches Vertrauen in Ost- und Westdeutschland." In Wahlen und politische Einstellungen in Ost- und Westdeutschland: Wahlen und politische Einstellungen, edited by Martin Elff, Kathrin Ackermann, and Heiko Giebler, Wahlen und politische Einstellungen, 55-89. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-35171-7_2.
  • Winkelmann, Ricarda, Jonathan Donges, E. Keith Smith, Manjana Milkoreit, Christina Eder, Jobst Heitzig, Alexia Katsanidou, Marc Wiedermann, Nico Wunderling, and Timothy M. Lenton. 2022. "Social tipping processes towards climate action: A conceptual framework." Ecological Economics 192 (February 2022): 107242. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107242.
  • Bacaksizlar, N. Gizem. 2019. Understanding Social Movements through Simulations of Anger Contagion in Social Media. https://repository.charlotte.edu//islandora/object/etd:1406.