Comparative Study of Election Surveys (CSES)
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CSES Secretariat Staff

About the Secretariat

The CSES Secretariat is the operational hub of the Comparative Study of Election Surveys project.

As of January 2026, the Center for Global Democracy (CGD) at Vanderbilt University serves as the U.S. institutional home of the CSES Secretariat, continuing its long-standing partnership with GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Germany.

The CSES Secretariat is led by the Chair of the CSES Planning Committee and managed in its day-to-day operations by the CSES Director of Studies, with support from the CSES Project Manager, both of whom serve as ex officio members of the CSES Planning Committee.

Institutional Homes

Center for Global Democracy — Vanderbilt University

The Center for Global Democracy (CGD) at Vanderbilt University is the U.S. institutional home of the CSES Secretariat. CGD is a leading research center dedicated to understanding how democracies emerge, function, and decline through rigorous, comparative research, large-scale public opinion data, and open-access research infrastructure.

GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences is the European hub of the CSES project, co-hosting the CSES Secretariat since 2011. GESIS is the largest infrastructure institute for social science research in Germany (Cologne & Mannheim), providing research data curation, archiving, and survey methodology leadership. GESIS also sponsors the annual GESIS Klingemann Prize for Best CSES Scholarship.

Secretariat Leadership & Team

(Listed in alphabetical order)

Katharina Blinzler

Data Processing Specialist
Department of Survey Data Curation (SDC), GESIS Köln, Germany
Katharina is responsible for processing CSES micro data, data documentation, collecting district data, data harmonization, data quality checks, online analysis tools, website content, archiving, and responding to user queries.

Mariana Rodríguez

Director of Studies
Director of Research & Engagement, Center for Global Democracy (CGD) & LAPOP Lab, Vanderbilt University, USA
Mariana holds a Ph.D. in political science from Vanderbilt University. As CSES Director of Studies, Mariana serves as an ex-officio member of the CSES Planning Committee, collaborating with the committee and Secretariat team to advance CSES Modules, liaise with national study partners, and lead communications and project strategy.

Armin Seimel

Project Manager
Senior Researcher, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany
Armin manages CSES project operations, international coordination, and data infrastructure. His research focuses on European politics, democratic governance, and party competition.

Bojan Todosijević

Macro Data and Data Quality Specialist
Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia
Bojan holds a Ph.D. from Central European University. He joined CSES in 2004 and is principally responsible for the collection, coding, and quality assurance of contextual macro-level and institutional data across election studies.

Robert Vidigal

Statistician
Statistician, Center for Global Democracy and LAPOP Lab, Vanderbilt University, USA
Robert holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stony Brook University (SUNY). He collaborates with the Secretariat team on CSES Modules data processing and statistical data product development.

Slaven Živković

Data Processing Consultant
DeFacto Consultancy, Montenegro
Slaven earned his Ph.D. in political science at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. He specializes in comparative political behavior and assists the Secretariat with dataset processing and harmonization.

Secretariat Responsibilities

  • Planning Committee Support: Assisting the elected governing board in project administration and module development.
  • Data Harmonization & Quality Assurance: Standardizing variable labels, checking question translations, verifying demographic coding, and merging district and macro indicators.
  • Data Dissemination & Archiving: Publishing official release files in Stata, SPSS, SAS, R, and CSV formats.
  • Collaborator Support: Liaising with election study teams across 55+ countries.
  • User Support: Answering researcher inquiries and managing errata updates.

Contact the Secretariat

ESC