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Research at the Centre
for Democracy Studies Aarau

Scholarly research on questions of democracy lies at the heart of the Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau. Many of the projects deal with themes that play a central role in our political life: referendums and elections, the militia system, the implementation of citizen’s initiatives, civic education, or modern methods of teaching history in schools.

Direct democracy – practice and challenges

The challenges of direct democracy are the focus of research at the ZDA.

Democratic Systems in Transition

The further development of democratic systems, institutions and practices are at the center of the second research focus.

Democracy, political education and history didactics

History lessons and civic education aim to build cultural and social science knowledge and promote skills.

Anwendungen

Applications

The Center for Democracy Aarau operates the Democracy Barometer, a database on referendums and a database on Swiss elections and votes.

Publications

As part of the annual Aarau Democracy Days, the ZDA has created a series of publications with the Schulthess publishing house in Zurich.