The report comprises a summary of progress on the three elements of the project:

1.       Database (data collection; data collation; on-line aspects) 

2.       Papers

3.       Networking – plans for Dissemination and Advocacy

Then, each point in the timetable will be reported on. 

1. DATABASE

I started the data collection (legislation and election results) on the recent elections in the country already covered in the Essex database and in all elections. Rather slow progress, a lot less on-line than expected but with help from the Association of Central and East European Election Officials (ACEEEO) to which my mentor belongs, it will be possible to gather it soon. Data formatting has been arranged with a few students and they started working on the data already collected

I contacted ITC Networks for consultancy and database training; we discussed the ways to maintain, expand and move the database but did not undertake the formal courses yet until the details of the mirror site and transfer are set with Essex. Preliminary discussions with Essex suggest that there are some formal steps and after agreeing with Professor Millard, which I will do in the next weeks, I would have to discuss with the central administration of the university, which can be done in October.

2. PAPERS

Conducted interviews with the main actors involved in the debates in Romania and with experts on the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. I did a lot of background research (internet and library) on countries that either undertook or discussed electoral reform towards personalization, trying to disentangle the contextual factors, the actors’ motivations and the type of proposals. Countries covered in terms of electoral system reform proposal – primary and secondary sources: Belgium, Bolivia, Germany, Italy, Moldova, South Africa, Venezuela. Reviewed the fundamental and followed the most recent political science literature on the topic. Consulted expert opinion reports used by international organizations (such as OSCE-ODIHR, IDEA and IFES) and by parliaments and reform commissions of countries that discussed changes in their electoral system recently (Australia regarding ban of political migration, Britain – the Jenkins commission report, New Zealand on introduction of a mixed system, South Africa of districting and personalization).

Since one of the possibilities to achieve personalization of the electoral system within list PR is the possibility to have preferential voting, and since this is one of the most understudied aspects of electoral systems despite the fact that more than half of the countries that have PR in Europe have some form of preferential voting, I did an in-depth study of what provisions exist and how they function in all European countries with such systems. I will now look into STV and the Australian system (AV), which are relevant before writing a paper on preferential voting and its implications.

The paper as uploaded now is not a full draft of the research paper but rather a sum of the background research on the research question as well as of the policy question which are discussed in the first part. The draft starts by presenting the structure of the paper, in an outline – list of contents format. Parts of this outline will then be developed to different extent in the main body of the text. Given the wealth of material, it is likely that there will be at least two complementary papers emerging from the research part of the project, one focusing on the details of the process of electoral system design and placing Romania in comparative perspective and one on the rationale of the choices made by political actors in electoral system reform using Romania as a test case for existing models. The sections in blue fonts will be completed in the next month after which the drafts for the final papers will be drawn.  

3. NETWORKING 

I made a few significant steps in this direction both in Romania and with international NGOs which deal with elections.  

In Romania, PNL experts were interested in using my future policy paper; at the same time, during the interview with the director of the Association Pro Democratia, we agreed to keep in touch and possibly collaborate further.

Through my mentor and my previous contacts at ACEEEO, some steps were made towards my collaboration with IDEA in two of their projects, both related to my current IPF project. One refers to looking into party organizations as means to achieve better accountability (one of the goals of electoral reform proposals that could be achieved though other means). The other one - the EPIC project - is very similar to the proposed additions to the database, namely summaries of provisions regarding various aspects of the electoral system and elections administration in the countries included in the database and it remains to see what potential for collaboration exists at the meeting in Tirana in September.

TIMETABLE based reporting

1 March – 1 June 2004: 

-          Data collection and formatting into the suitable basic electronic format (excel, word) for updating the database of election results and legislation (use internet, email; already gathered hard copies; request hard copies if nothing else available). So far collected:

o        Recent (post 2002) election and party laws from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland,

o        Recent (i.e. post 2002) parliamentary and presidential election results (national level) for Hungary 2002, Czech Republic 2002, Latvia 2002, Estonia 2003

o        ADD Albania, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia to the database (election and party laws since 1990) : collected election results for the last three for all elections (still to check for accuracy) and a number of laws for each of the countries, mostly in hard copy so I contacted students for help with scanning and formatting

-          ASP and ACCESS advanced courses in order to be able to perform database improvements, structural changes and additions – contacted an IT company for consultancy and training but did not do the training yet until it is clear where and in which format the database will be; that depends on agreement on the location and format with Essex and CPS-IPF; more on that at the end of August 

-          Interviews with politicians, experts and journalists in Romania (planned for March, April, due to the local elections they could only be completed in June-July)

-          MP survey Romania: renounced at due to financial constraints – taken out of the budgeted costs

-          Research on Polish and Czech (as well as recent Dutch and South African) proposals and reforms (library, internet, emailing with academic and policy experts) – covered more countries than initially planned    (start May; to be continued in June) 

1 June – 1 September

-          Ordering the Romanian information gathered (as planned but only after the completion of the interviews in July; still no interviews with journalists, to be arranged hopefully in the fall)

-          Review literature (done) but formalized hypotheses and testing yet to be written in a coherent manner 

-          First draft of research paper on Romanian electoral system design: testing hypotheses about models of electoral system design, complex motivations and imperfect information – to be completed in September; currently uploaded a background research paper

-          Research trip to Warsaw or Prague – replaced in agreement with both the group mentor and individual mentor that it would be more useful to do a trip to Budapest both for research and dissemination reasons since I could (a) use the CEU library and on-line facilities, (b) meet and discuss collaboration with the ACEEEO people as well as (c) meet with the mentors.

-          Contacted ACEEEO and through them IDEA for collaboration on the database updating; will have a meeting with IDEA and IFES representatives at the ACEEEO conference in September

-          Start updating the database: addition of new countries, fixing small errors, gaps and malfunctions  à started updating postponed putting it together on-line for September- October until agreement is reached with Essex – discussion arrangements yet to be finalized

-          Contacted Essex on agreement to build a mirror site at CPS/CEU (see above)