The Swedish National Election Studies Program (SNES) was established in 1954 by Jörgen Westerståhl and Bo Särlvik and is today a high profile network of researchers at the Department of Political Science in Gothenburg. The Program serve as a collaborative platform for Swedish and international scholars interested in studies of electoral democracy, representative democracy, opinion formation, and voting behavior.
The aim of our research is among others to explain why people vote as they do and why an election ends in a particular way. We track and follow trends in the Swedish electoral democracy and make comparisons with other countries.
Professor Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson is the director of the Swedish Election Studies Program. At the University of Gothenburg’s website you can learn more about on-going activities of SNES and the team of researchers who are linked to the program.
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems
Sweden has been part of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) since 1995. CSES is a coordinated comparative collaboration between national research teams around the world. This collaboration enables the systematic analysis of electoral behaviour under globally varying institutional conditions. More than 200 scholars from over 60 nations collaborate to reach a better understanding of enduring and fundamental questions about electoral choice. The collaborative effort results in a very large number of research publications each year. A consolidated West-European multi-party democracy as Sweden represents an important case for comparative electoral researchers, not the least because of the high data quality.
CSES remain the most important international collaborative project for Swedish research on elections, opinion, and democracy. In the Swedish case, the field work for the fifth and sixth module of the CSES will be carried out in conjunction with the general elections in 2018 and 2022. (Applications for CSES: Sweden V VI is currently being reviewed by the Swedish National Research Foundation and the Swedish Riksbank).
Access to data from SNES
How to get access to data and documentation from the Swedish National Election Studies program?
The Swedish National Election Studies
Data from the Swedish National Election Studies are deposited at the Swedish National Data Service (SND).
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems
CSES is a coordinated comparative collaboration between national research teams around the world. You can download data from CSES by visiting their website.
Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson
Professor at the Department of Political Science
Director of the Swedish National Election Studies Program
University of Gothenburg
+46 (0)31 786 46 66
