Research areas and projects

What is political science?

How can we live together? This is one of the most important questions we humans face. In democratic societies with well-functioning political institutions, conflicts between different groups can be managed through free elections, well-thought-out legislation, and fair and efficient public administration. Where such institutions are lacking, political divisions risk leading to violence and instability – or one group taking power at the expense of all others.

Political science, the science of politics, examines why political conflicts arise and how they are managed in different societies and the international system.

At the Department of Political Science in Gothenburg, we conduct research and offer teaching and supervision in all the main areas of the subject – international relations, comparative politics, public policy and administration, and political theory. The department hosts several major research programmes. These include the Electoral Research Programme, which has studied Swedish voters since the 1950s, the Quality of Government Programme, which examines corruption and state institutions, and the Varieties of Democracy Programme, a global project to measure democracy. But the department is also home to a range of other research groups working at the international research frontier.