Tracking: EP elections 2009 (II)

Please see the Overview Article for all articles in the series "Tracking: European Elections 2009".

For the most recent articles, please check the "Special Feature: Road to the European elections 2009" section in the sidebar!
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While I am looking at the path to the European Parliament elections 2009 from a European citizen's perspective, others are tracking the whole process scientifically.

A large scientific pilot project is PIREDEU, short for "Providing an Infrastructure for Research on Electoral Democracy in the European Union". Under the auspices of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute in Florence (Italy), a group of 20 researchers from 14 institutions in differenct EU countries have joined to collect data all around European elections:

This three-year design study will assess the feasibility of an upgrade to the European Election Studies that will provide an infrastructure for research into citizenship, political participation, and electoral democracy in the European Union (EU). The scientific and technical feasibility of this infrastructure will be investigated by means of a pilot study conducted in the context of the 2009 elections to the European parliament. If the pilot study is successful the EES will be in a position to request funds to create a comprehensive empirical database that would endow the social science community with the most essential information required for a recurrent audit of the most important aspects of the electoral process in the European Union.

At the same time as providing evidence for a feasibility assessment, the pilot study will provide the basis for a fully-fledged study of the European Parliament elections of 2009, comprising a voters study, a candidate study, a media study, a manifestos study, and a contextual data study.

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Quite interestingly, the project also offers an Open Forum for "consultation with the wider research community". So if you are interested in the five topics of the project:

1. surveys of citizens (design of the voter survey)
   
2. surveys of elites (design of the candidate survey)
   
3. contents of party manifestos (design of the manifesto study)
   
4. contents of news (design of the media study); and
   
5. contextual data;
   

then you can join the scientific process through active contribution.

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Under the category "Tracking: EP elections 2009" am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009. So far: (1).