Daniele Caramani (University of Florence)

Contact details:

Department of Political Science,
University of Florence,
via Valori 9,
50132 Florence, Italy

Tel: +39 055 50 32 701

Fax: +39 055 50 32 426

E-mail: caramani@unifi.it

Career:

After graduating in 1993 at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) under the supervision of Stefano Bartolini, I came to the European University Institute in 1994 to write my Ph.D. entitled 'The nationalisation of electoral politics. A historical and comparative analysis of territories, elections and parties in Western Europe'. The research is comparative and historical and deals with the territorial homogeneisation of electoral behaviour. The data on which this studies relies are election results at the level of single constituencies since the earliest times of electoral statistics for 18 West European countries. All data have been computerised according to standard rules in different programmes and are available in different forms. The CD-ROM accompanying my thesis presents the complete collection of results which has been computerised according to standard rules across countries and time periods. For each country all election results are presented in absolute figures, percentage distributions by parties and constituencies. Information is available in different programmes (Excel, SPSS, and SAS) and data structures for analysing data, viewing election results, and building time series. The CD-ROM contains also the thorough documentation for each country and time period. The navigation through both election results and documentation is easy and straighforward.

The collection of electoral data took me to the Mannheim Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung of the University of Mannheim (Germany) where in collaboration with Peter Flora and Franz Kraus the collection eventually developed into a project of collecting and documenting electoral data since 1815 in Europe recently published. This study, entitled European Regions, 1870-1995. The Territorial Units of Official Statistics, covers local governments in 20 European countries. The research aims to be a starting point for other comparative research based on regional territorial administrative units by documenting the changes of borders, areas and population through census data. Furthermore, several features of local government are also documented: the finances of local governments, their competences, the administrative structure of the state, the relationship between local authorities and the central state, and so forth. It is therefore a work of meta-information that puts the basis for further regional comparative analyses.

In 1998 I was appointed as 'Ricercatore' at the Department of Political Science of the University of Florence. Next year I will be back at the European University Institute as 'Vincent Wright Fellow in Comparative Politics' at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies.

Selected Publications:

Books and CD-ROMS:

Bartolini, S., Caramani, D., Hug, S. (1998), Parties and Party Systems. A Bibliographic Guide to the Literature on Parties and Party Systems in Europe since 1945 on CD-ROM, London, Sage.

Caramani, D. (2000), Elections in Western Europe since 1815. Electoral Results by Constituencies [supplemented with CD-ROM], London-New York, Macmillan-Grove’s Dictionaries, xxiv-1090 pp.

Caramani, D. (forthcoming), The Formation of National Electorates and Party Systems. A Comparative and Historical Study.

Main articles:

Caramani, D. (1994), 'La nazionalizzazione del voto', in Rivista italiana di scienza politica, XXIV, n. 2, pp. 237-285.

Caramani, D. (1996), 'The nationalisation of electoral politics: conceptual reconstruction and review of the literature', in West European politics, XIX, n. 2, pp. 205-224.

Caramani, D. (1996), 'The Swiss parliamentary election of 1995', in Electoral Studies, XV, n. 1, pp. 128-138.

Caramani, D. (1996), 'The ‘Project on Comparative European Electoral History: 1830-1995’. A computerised data handbook', in Eurodata Newsletters (EURODATA Research Archive of the Mannheim Centre of European Social Research), n. 4, Autumn, pp. 15-18.

Caramani, D. (1996), 'La partecipazione elettorale: gli effetti della competizione maggioritaria', in Rivista italiana di scienza politica, XXVI, n. 3, pp. 585-609.

Caramani, D. and Hug, S. (1998), 'The literature on European parties and party systems since 1945. A quantitative analysis', in European Journal of Political Research, XXXIII, n. 4, pp. 497-524.

Research

My future research will include a comparative history of elections in Europe. On the basis of the electoral data collected in Elections in Western Europe since 1815, I will also attempt at producing a historical electoral atlas of Europe since the nineteenth century.


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