Daniel Bochsler

Current research projects

A spatial model of party competition to study ethnic politics in young democracies

Competitive elections, together with an inclusive process of representation, are one of the main pillars of democracies, and are among the core dimensions in the quality of democracy literature. How are minorities and majorities in ethnically divided societies politically represented? Why do voters and parties radicalise on ethnic issues in divided societies? How should successful institutional engineering look in order to enhance political inclusion? I intend to study electoral competition in ethnically divided societies and institutional effects on electoral competition, employing innovative ideas from several research fields. Spatial models of voting, combined with social choice models, are our theoretical basis for studying voter behaviour, strategic positioning by political parties, and institutional effects. The study of multi-level party systems enables us to understand the link between parties and elections at the national, regional, and local level. Our study extends US-focused research to young democracies, and also discusses the effects that occur under proportional representation (PR).

Relevant preliminary papers & publications

Bochsler, Daniel (2009) Electoral rules and the representation of ethnic minorities in post-communist Europe, in: European Yearbook of Minority Issues 7 (forthcoming).

Bochsler, Daniel (2009) Testing V. O. Key in Serbia: The Mediating Effect of Ethnic Context on Electoral System Effects on Support for Ethnic Radicalism. Paper presented at the conference 'Reforming the French Presidential Election System', 15-16 June, Paris.

Bochsler, Daniel (2007) Local politics and intra-ethnic party competition: Multi-party systems among ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe. Paper presented at the 4th ECPR General Conference, Pisa, 6-8 September 2007.

Please find further papers and articles on the subject in the papers and publications section of this web page

Populism and populist parties in post-communist democracies

(with Zsolt Enyedi and Istvan Szekely)

This research project looks into different types of populist parties, their programs and it investigates the determinants for their electoral success. The empirical focus is on the young democracies in Central and Eastern Europe.

Representation of minorities in local politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina (2009-2012)

This research project focuses on representation of ethnic minorities in local politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We investigate which forms of minority representation improve minority inclusion into the decision making process. This project with Nenad Stojanovic, Daniel Kübler, Sylvie Ramel, and a team of Bosnian researchers lead by Sara Nikolić and Katarina Crnjanski is funded by the Swiss National Research Foundation (SNF) for a three-year period.

PhD project (completed 2008, at the University of Geneva, faculty for social sciences and economy)

Resolving the puzzle of party systems in Central and Eastern Europe:
The joint impact of party nationalisation and electoral systems

Elections in newly democratised countries of Central and Eastern Europe constitute a genuine challenge for the classical electoral system theory, since they have often led to unexpected outcomes. Concentrating electoral systems, when used in Russia, Ukraine and Slovenia, resulted in a very high number of parties in the 1990s.

In my PhD project try to explain the party systems in the new European democracies relying on a newly introduced phenomenon: the nationalisation of the party system.

My empirical tests are based on a new database comprising electoral results on district level for twenty Central and Eastern European countries for the period 1990-2007.

Director of the PhD thesis: Prof. Pascal Sciarini

Thesis defended in February 2008.

Please find my preliminary papers and articles on the subject in the papers and publications section of this web page