The CSPP applies ideas from the social sciences to major problems of government by combining quantitative, qualitative and institutional methods from political science, sociology, economics and related disciplines. When founded in 1976 by Professor Richard Rose it was the first public policy centre within a European university, and is now part of the Aberdeen Department of Politics & International Relations.
The CSPP specializes in comparative research across Europe and the wider OECD world. Its fields of specialization include the growth of government; social welfare; elections and democratization; and social capital and health. After the fall of the Berlin Wall the CSPP launched an innovative programme of Barometer surveys to understand mass response to transformation in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Its 110 New Europe Barometer surveys cover a wide range of political, economic and social attitudes and behaviour.
The enlarged European Union is studied from the bottom up in order to understand the extent to which the policy concerns of Europeans primarily reflect individual characteristics such as age, income and education or of national institutions and cultures. The CSPP is also actively engaged in comparing EU societies with countries seeking enlargement or on its borders, especially Turkey, Croatia, and Ukraine.
The results of the Centre's research are published in: its series of Studies in Public Policy; peer reviewed social science journals; public affairs periodicals; books; and in Russian and German. Reports are presented to policymaking agencies such as the World Bank, OECD, the European Commission, UN agencies and in seminars across Europe, the United States and further afield. In addition to its home website it also maintains:
www.RussiaVotes.org
www.BalticVoices.org
www.abdn.ac.uk/cspp/socialcapital
Funding comes from national institutions such as the British ESRC and the Nuffield Foundation and from scientific agencies and foundations in Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sweden and the United States and intergovernmental agencies of the European Commission, the United Nations and the World Bank. The CSPP edits the Journal of Public Policy for Cambridge University Press.
