The research project Representative Democracy in Europe examined the key actors of representative democracy in the 27 EU member states: voters, political parties, parliaments and governments.
Central to the functioning of representative democracy is the election of political representatives to the national parliaments by the citizens, who forms the government and the stability of governments. Consequently, this project researched citizens’ opinions and those of their political representatives: political parties, parliaments and governments. By combining the European Representative Democracy (ERD) Dataset on governments, parliaments and institutions with opinion polls, as well as with surveys of political parties, the project analysed key research questions about representative democracy in Western and Eastern Europe.
As the project was mainly an applied research project, the data collection was more limited. However, some additional data are available in the replication files for the publications within the project. In addition, the project corrected and updated some key variables in the ERD dataset, as well as, added the causes of cabinet termination for each cabinet. These updates was included in a final (2020) release of the ERD dataset.
The research project was financed by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation for the period 2012 – June 2019.
The research group
Principal investigator/project leader: Johan Hellström, Umeå University
Senior researcher: Torbjörn Bergman, Umeå University
PhD candidate/Junior researcher: Daniel Walther, Umeå university
Junior researcher: Niklas Bolin, Mid Sweden University
Research assistants: Jonas Lindahl and Maria Thürk, Umeå University
(The research project started in 2012 and ended in 2019.)
Publications
Below you can find the project’s full text (Gold or Green open access) publications:
Walther, Daniel & Hellström, Johan (2021). Government termination in Europe:
a sensitivity analysis, West European Politics, 45 (3): 591-611. Publisher version. Replication files.
Hellström, Johan & Walther, Daniel. (2019). Governmental participation and alliances of liberal parties in Europe. In Caroline Close & Emilie van Haute (eds.) Liberal parties in Europe (pp. 310–325). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Publisher version; Pre-print.
Walther, Daniel & Hellström, Johan (2018). The verdict in the polls: how government stability is affected by popular support. West European Politics, Vol. 42, (3) : 593-617. Publisher version; Pre-print.
Walther, Daniel, Hellström, Johan & Bergman, Torbjörn (2018). Government instability and the state. Political Science Research and Methods, Epub ahead of print. Publisher version (Open-access) Publisher version (Paywall); (Pre-print).
Bäck, Hanna & Hellström, Johan (2018). Kris i regeringsfrågan? In Katarina Barrling och Sören Holmberg (eds.) Demokratins framtid (pp. 269–297). Stockholm: Sveriges riksdag. The book; The chapter
Bergman, Torbjörn, Hellström, Johan & Sandström, Camilla (2018). Regeringsbildningen efter riksdagsvalet 2018. In Lars Nord, Marie Grusell, Niklas Bolin & Kajsa Falasca (eds.) Snabbtänkt : reflektioner från valet 2018 av ledande forskare (pp. 21–22). Sundsvall: DEMICOM, Mittuniversitetet. The book; The chapter.
Hellström, Johan & Walther, Daniel (2017). How is government termination affected by the state of economy? : Payoff structures, type of government and economic changes. Government and Opposition. Publisher version (Paywall); Publisher version (Open access).
Walther, Daniel (2017). Till death do us part : a comparative study of government instability in 28 European democracies (PhD dissertation). Umeå universitet, Umeå. Full text.
Hellström, Johan & Blomgren, Magnus (2016). Party debate over Europe in national election campaigns : electoral disunity and party cohesion. European Journal of Political Research, 55(2), 265–282. Full text.
Dolezal, Martin & Hellström, Johan (2016). The radical right as drivning force in the electoral arena? In Swen Hutter, Edgar Grande, Hanspeter Kriesi (eds.) Politicising Europe : integration and mass politics (pp. 156–180). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Full text.
Bäck, Hanna & Hellström, Johan (2015). Efter valet 2014: Regeringsbildningen och det inställda extra valet. Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, 117(2), 261-278. Full text.
Bergman, Torbjörn, Ersson, Svante, & Hellström, Johan (2015). Government formation and breakdown in Western and Central Eastern Europe. Comparative European Politics, 13(3), 345-375. Publisher version; Publisher version (Open access); (Pre-print)..
Walther, D. (2015). Picking the winner(s) : Forecasting elections in multiparty systems. Electoral Studies, 40, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2015.06.003. Full text.
Döring, Holger & Hellström, Johan (2013). Who gets into government? Coalition formation in European democracies. West European Politics, 36(4), 683-703. Full text.
Below you can download the final (2020) release of the ERD dataset. It also contains documentation of corrections and additions compared to the previous release.
