Research Chair in Electoral Studies
The Research Chair in Electoral Studies at the Université de Montréal aims to promote the study of elections and electoral rules in contemporary democracies. The Chair undertakes extensive and rigorous analyses, both comparative and longitudinal, of parties’ and voters’ behaviour in elections. The goal is to advance our understanding of what induces parties to make the strategic choices that they make in election campaigns, of what motivates people to vote for a given party or not to vote, and of how the choices made by the parties affect the behaviour of voters and vice versa.
The Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies was awarded to Professor André Blais for an initial period of seven years in 2001 and renewed for an additional period of seven years in 2008. Since 2015, Professor André Blais holds the Research Chair in Electoral Studies at the Université de Montréal. |
Elections are the defining institution of modern democracy. They are an essential mechanism for ensuring government accountability, providing many citizens with their main opportunity for exercising democratic citizenship. Citizens get to pass judgement on the decisions of the past and to indicate a direction for the future. Grasping the meanings of elections is essential for understanding how representative democracies actually work.
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