The Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP), one of the most prestigious comparative research projects in the study of electoral behavior, has relocated its headquarters to Universitat Pompeu Fabra. The project will be directed by Mariano Torcal, Full Professor of Political Science at UPF and Director of the RESCM-UPF research center of the Department of Political and Social Sciences, and Robert Mattes (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland) as Principal Investigators.

Mariano Torcal: “This relocation to UPF reflects the strength of electoral studies and comparative politics at our university, positioning Pompeu Fabra University as a leading center for international electoral research”

What is CNEP?

CNEP is an international comparative research project founded in the early 1990s that has conducted 71 election surveys (in 71 different countries) across 5 continents using common questionnaires. For over three decades, it has generated high-quality data on electoral behavior and electoral dynamics, establishing itself as a fundamental resource for academic research worldwide.

The project focuses on three priority areas:

• Political Polarization: analysis of ideological fragmentation and polarization in electoral democracies
• Political Intermediation: study of how parties, media, and other actors mediate between citizens and institutions
• Democratic Support: research on legitimacy and trust in democratic institutions

A new chapter for CNEP, which reinforces UPF's leadership in electoral research

After more than three decades under the direction of Paul Beck and Richard Gunther at The Ohio State University, CNEP enters a new phase at UPF with important methodological innovations. 

These include the transition toward three-wave panel designs and the incorporation of conjoint experiments to strengthen causal inference in electoral analysis.

“This relocation to UPF reflects the strength of electoral studies and comparative politics at our university, positioning Pompeu Fabra University as a leading center for international electoral research”, explailns Mariano Torcal, who between 2002 and 2012 was the national coordinator of the European Social Survey.

The CNEP data is open access: data from 71 countries are currently available and accessible, and new data will be added biannually (every two years).

All interested parties can follow the CNEP through social media platforms, and can contact it by email and by subscribing to its form. It will have a presence on X (@CNEP_ELEC_ACC), Bluesky (@cnep-elections.bsky.social), LinkedIn (Comparative National Elections Project), and Instagram (@cnep.elections.upf.b), and will offer a newsletter, which interested parties can subscribe to at forms.gle/ejaEqV46CUjXrvFQ6. The CNEP's contact address at UPF is [email protected]