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Research Network on

The Political Theory of Elections

Current Members: 69

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About

This Research Network is especially concerned with the nature, forms and justification of democratic elections and what democratic theory has to say about elections. Our interests in elections span ideal and non-ideal theory and cover issues such as electoral procedures, voting methods, campaign regulation, extensions of the franchise, compulsory voting, and secret voting, as well as more familiar conceptual and normative questions about democracy and elections, and the alternatives to them. We aim to create an international, interdisciplinary network of researchers interested in these issues.

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We aim to advance existing normative debates about elections in general and democratic elections in particular. To this end, our objectives include an examination of such matters as the scope for combining representative and direct democracy; for distinguishing vote buying and campaign promises; and the relative merits of different ways of organising and funding elections and their constitutive rights, duties and permissions. We seek a better understanding of the relationship between elections, appointment, rotation and other ways in which political offices can be allocated; as well as when electoral participation is morally required of citizens and to what extent legally compulsory voting is justifiable. 


We are keen to promote interest in the ethics of voting (including strategic voting, vote selling, ignorance and prejudice) and research on the rights of citizens to stand as candidates for elections and that right’s relationship to research on political parties, political leadership, political (in)equality and political knowledge as well as its implications for the democratic value of elections.  We seek to better understand the relationship between elections as a way to distribute and justify political power and ideals of equality, freedom, solidarity and rationality. More broadly, we are interested in exploring the consequences for electoral theory and practice of developments in political theory/philosophy over the past fifty years, as well as the changes brought about by international migration, democratic backsliding, and social movements against sexism, racism, colonialism and speciesism.

Hence, members of this network are interested in both ideal and highly non-ideal political theory and their respective implications for political practice, as well as for critical and analytic political theory, moral and political philosophy, epistemology and the social and political sciences.

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The network will initiate and support conferences and special issues on the political theory of elections and seek to promote research, dissemination and communication activities. Its purpose is to foster dialogue and the sharing of information amongst scholars interested in elections from a more theoretical perspective.

One key activity is the publication of a bi-annual newsletter sent to the members of the Network to disseminate information about activities in the field, calls for papers and recent publications. If you want to advertise an event via the newsletter, please send an email to marcus.carlsenhaggrot@sciencespo.fr 

A list of recent publications in the field, prepared for the latest newsletter, is available here.

The network is also organising a workshop at the upcoming ECPR Joint Sessions in Prague, 20-23 May 2025. The call for papers can be found here. The deadline for abstract submissions (online) is 21 November 2024. For questions about this workshop, contact: marcus.carlsenhaggrot@sciencespo.fr or pierre-etienne.vandamme@kuleuven.be

In the future, the network will keep organising and endorsing workshops and sections, mainly in the framework of ECPR's conferences. 

Byelaws in Addition to the Group Framework

The Standing Group is governed by a Steering Committee consisting of five members elected by and from the Standing Group members for a period of three years