Daniele Caramani (Milan, 26 June 1968) is a comparative political scientist.
Daniele Caramani grew up in Milan and Paris. He holds a baccalauréat (international option) from the Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. After the BA and MA at the University of Geneva, he obtained his Ph.D. at the European University Institute, Florence. He attended the Essex and Michigan methods summer schools. [1] [2]
Caramani started his career in 1991 at the University of Geneva as teaching assistant in methods and comparative politics. He was a researcher at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (1996−1998) and then assistant professor at the University of Florence until 2002. In 2000−2002 he was Vincent Wright Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. [3] In 2002 he returned to Mannheim. In 2004 he took up a position as Senior Lecturer / Reader at the University of Birmingham, UK. In 2006 he became a Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Since 2014, he is a professor at the University of Zurich holding the Chair of Comparative Politics. [4] In 2020 he was appointed Ernst B. Haas Chair at the European University Institute, [5] Florence (on leave from the University of Zurich), where he directs the European Governance and Politics Programme [6] at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies.
He has been a Jemolo Fellow at Nuffield College (Oxford University), a visiting fellow at the Stein Rokkan Centre in Bergen, Norway, [7] and a visiting professor at the European University Institute, Florence, and Australian National University, Canberra (2019-2020).
Caramani’s work is comparative and historical with quantitative time series reaching back to the formation of political cleavages during phases of mass democratization, state formation, nationalism and industrialization in the 19th century. It includes research on elections, representation and electoral geography, parties and party systems, methodology, European integration and globalization.
His main work analyses the interplay between territorial and functional cleavages at the national, European and global levels. His book The Nationalization of Politics (Cambridge University Press 2004) [8] was awarded the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research. [9] His book The Europeanization of Politics (Cambridge University Press 2015) extends the analysis to Europe. [10] Current work analyses global cleavages with an ERC Advanced Grant project (GLOBAL). [11]
Caramani’s empirical approach is based on comparative and quantitative-statistical methods, and has produced datasets and archives. He is the author of Elections in Western Europe since 1815: Electoral Results by Constituencies (Palgrave 2000, with CD-ROM), [12] later expanded into a data archive of which he is Co-Director: the Constituency-Level Elections Archive (CLEA) has received the APSA award in 2012. [13] The latest release covers historically over 2,025 elections from 180 countries, with GeoReferenced Electoral Districts (GRED) with 167 historical maps from 74 countries. [14]
Other work includes research on political representation [15] [16] and transnational voting rights. [17]
Caramani’s work follows closely Stein Rokkan’s legacy. He also translated into Italian State Formation, Nation-Building, and Mass Politics in Europe: The Theory of Stein Rokkan (Oxford University Press 1999) [18] [19] and wrote two chapters on Rokkan’s theory. In 2023 he held the Stein Rokkan Memorial Lecture. [20]
On methodology, he authored Introduction to the Comparative Method with Boolean Algebra (Sage, Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences 2009). [21]
For a student readership, Caramani edits the textbook Comparative Politics (Oxford University Press 2023, sixth edition). With unparalleled comparative empirical material, this is the most comprehensive introduction to comparative politics, written by the leading experts in the field. [22]
Books
Edited volumes
Textbook
Articles
Chapters