Very delighted that Semra Sevi, my PhD student, won the Richard J. Schmeelk award (she was also awarded the FRQSC fellowship)! Read more about her many accomplishments here. Very proud!
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My MA student, Grégoire Saint-Martin-Audet won the prize for the best presentation by a master’s student, at the 2017 edition of the CSDC Graduate Student Conference in Quebec. He presented his work on his work on the effect of populations’ heterogeneity on the relation between political institutions and voter turnout. He found that while federalism and proportional representation have a positive impact on voter turnout in homogeneous societies, a higher level of ethnic heterogeneity decreases this positive effect. In fact, when a population is highly heterogeneous, proportional representation doesn’t have any effect on voter turnout, while federalism decreases it. Congratulations also to my PhD student, Alexandra Manoliu’s, who received recognition on her work on how political TV series are creating cynicism among their audiences  Congratulations to my postdoctoral fellow, Filip Kostelka, who won the Mattei Dogan prize for the best dissertation in comparative politics. A fully deserved award. Top quality research by an outstanding scholar! Je viens de faire une entrevue pour l’émission À Force de Chercher à la radio CISM, au sujet des recherches menées par la Chaire de recherche en études électorales. Ici: http://cism893.ca/emissions/a-force-de-chercher/
Merci à Coraline Marathon pour une entrevue fort intéressante. Bittersweet moment. We had a total of 10 presentations followed by very fruitful exchanges. Everybody was fully engaged. Directing this 8 year project was a pure dream. I highly recommend. Thanks to all the collaborators and their willingness to participate in this project. Left to Right: Indridi H Indridason, William Cross, Elisabeth Gidengil, Laura Stephenson, Semra Sevi, Karine Van der Straeten, André Blais, Jean-François Daoust, Marian Bohl, Thomas Gschwend, Jean-François Laslier, Maxime Coulombe, Martial Foucault, Fernando Feitosa, Romain Lachat, Filip Kostelka, Damien Bol, Ignacio Lago, Henry Milner, David Austen-Smith. 
 Last week, I judged the CPSA poster session with Alison Smith (University of Toronto) and David McGrane (University of Saskatchewan). I very much enjoyed the experience. I was so impressed with the quality of the presentations and the participants’ responses to our questions. Congrats to the winner, Rob Currie-Wood (Carleton), and runners-up Shuai Jin (Iowa) and Hannah Forsyth (Ontario Legislature intern). Keep up the great work!  I am proud that my PhD student, Ioana Alexandra Manoliu, won the 3MT award. Her presentation was clear and to the point. She was able to convince us that we should read the dissertation, Does My Favourite Political TV Series Make Me Cynical?, Bravo!  Hier j’ai eu le plaisir de faire une présentation sur la participation électorale et politique à l’Université d’été sur la démocratie (thème: la participation démocratique) organisée par la Chaire de recherche sur la démocratie et les institutions parlementaires de l’Université Laval en partenariat avec Sciences Po Bordeaux et l’Université libre de Bruxelles, qui se tient à l’Université Laval du 23 au 27 mai 2017. 
Following the French presidency debate, Agnès Gruda, Marc-Antoine Dilhac and I shared our thoughts at a round table moderated by Anne-Laure Mahé. The event was organized by CERIUM.  Today, I attended the CÉRIUM and l'AÉSPÉIUM's Presidential Buffet to watch and discuss the live result of the first round of the French presidential election (with colleagues Philippe Faucher, Ruth Dassonneville, Henry Milner and George H. Ross). On April 3, Global Affairs invited Jon Pammett and I to share our experiences and research in the area of elections with the Bolivian Supreme Electoral Tribunal. It was great to speak to Bolivia's Ambassador who is committed to democracy and making the democratic institutions in Bolivia work.
Last week, I had the privilege to judge The Political Science Students' Association's Political Science Games! The Political Science Games is an academic competition that pit 18 teams of McGill's best and brightest against one another in a two-part contest featuring a case competition on electoral reform and a European Council simulation I spoke to LeDevoir about Québec Solidaire here
I like experimenting with different electoral systems to vote for issues outside of conventional elections as well. Several years ago, I helped organize a tool to inform the public about the various electoral systems that exist in the world to elect state leaders, and to collect data on voters’ behaviour under these systems. The study focused on the election of the next Pope. Last year, I was involved in two exciting projects. For Vote Foot, participants around the world were able to choose the best football player using 3 different voting systems. It was a very fun experience. You can check it out here: https://votefoot.org/. I conducted a similar study with Daniel Stockemer (Ottawa) at the time of the Eurovision contest in which people were invited to vote for the best song under two different voting systems. Elections are ubiquitous, they are not confined to politics, and there is much to learn about how people vote in different types of elections.
December 8, 2016: I did an interview about the MyDemocracy.ca survey with Kady O'Malley from the Ottawa Citizen. You can read it here. #ERRE
December 7 2016: While people are still focused on the electoral reform survey, I wrote a constructive piece for IRPP / Policy Options to redirect the conversation on what could be done next. You can read it here.
November 30, 2016: This semester I taught a course on electoral systems. As the Special Committee on Electoral Reform gears up to announce their recommendation, my students offered a suggestion of their own: mixed regional compensation. Semra Sevi and I wrote a summary of their report for IRPP / Policy Options. You can read it here.  It was great to have Chantal Hébert with us in our class on electoral reform. In this photo are the students of POL2050, Chantal Hébert, Semra Sevi, the teaching assistant and André´ Blais. On October 7 2016, Minister Stéphane Dion invited me to give a talk to Saint-Laurent residents on Electoral Reform. October 20, 2016: I organized a public forum on Electoral Reform in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship. You can watch it here.
October 19, 2016: Filip Kostelka and I wrote an article for IRPP/ Policy Options on how Canadians rate the state of our democracy . You can read it here.
October 17, 2016: I wrote an article in The Globe and Mail explaining why proportional representation does not seem to produce greater voter happiness. You can read it here.
October 3, 2016: Semra Sevi and I wrote an article on the importance of hearing from young Canadians on electoral reform for IRPP / Policy Options. Check it out here
I was recently in Ottawa to talk about electoral reform as part of the Big Thinking speaker series organized by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. You can watch the conference here. I was asked to be an expert witness at the ERRE (The House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform) on July 27 2016. You can watch my appearance here. The transcript of my presentation is below.
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