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Political elites

CIRCaP has broad experience participating in and coordinating national and transnational research programmes in the field of Elite studies.

Eurelite

Up until 2004, the Centre has participated in an extensive European research project on the political elites, – EURélite: European Political Elites in Comparison. The Long Road to Convergence – coordinated by Prof. Maurizio Cotta and Prof. Heinrich Best (University of Jena), aimed at the development of historical databases on the European parliamentary elites and ministries. Within this research field, the activity of the Centre, in particular, was focused on the behaviour of the socio-political elites across the “critical junctures” of the European integration process.

Published books: – Cotta, M., Best H. (Eds.) Democratic representation in Europe. Diversity, change and convergence, 2007. – Best, H., Cotta, M., (Eds.) Parliamentary Representatives in Europe 1848-2000. Legislative Recruitment and careers in Eleven European Countries, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000.

National Projects

Since 2008, CIRCaP has been coordinating a national project on European integration at an institutional deadlock: changes in representation, decision-making and social citizenship funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and Research. Within the project, the Siena team is developing a work on varying geometries of representation in a complex polity: (national and supra-national) actors and mechanisms of representation in an integrated Europe. The research addresses, in particular, the problems tied to the transnationalisation of parties; leadership in European representation and its connections with national representation processes; and national parliaments and their recent attempts to link national and European representation through a greater domestic parliamentary control over the EU decisions.

The Centre also participates in a project on Decision-making processes coordinated by the University of Milan and funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and Research where it investigates the changing nature of the relationship between government and parliament in Italy.