The University of Barcelona hosts an ERC Advanced Grant led by Carles Boix

The newly established Institutions and Political Economy Research Group (IPERG), led by Professor Carles Boix at the University of Barcelona, will foster the study the the role of institutions on the emergence of political order and stability, the political representation of individual and social interests and economic development and redistribution. It will also encourage greater integration among various parts of the social sciences in Barcelona, particularly among political science, economics, sociology and history.

The research centre is funded by the European Union (EU) through a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant and institutionally supported by the University of Barcelona School of Economics and the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation (FBG).

The ERC Advanced Grant will fund the project “The Birth of Party Democracy. The Emergence of Mass Parties and the Choice of Electoral Laws in Europe and North America (1870-1940)”, mainly focused on research on the formation of party systems and representative institutions in Europe and North America during the emergence of mass democracy (1870-1940). The project will combine statistical and historical methods to explain how political choices made at particular critical junctures involved the creation of non-socialist and socialist parties, the mobilisation of their corresponding electorates and the strategic response of political elites.

The ERC Advanced grant awarded to Professor Carles Boix will provide up to €2.5 million for a period of 5 years. This funding will allow the creation of a core group of around ten researchers.

Carles Boix, director of IPERG, is also the Robert Garrett Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. He teaches and conducts research on political economy and comparative politics on empirical democratic theory, the choice of institutions and their consequences for growth and inequality. He graduated both in Law and in History from the University of Barcelona and received his PhD in Political Science from Harvard University.

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