RESEARCH AND THIRD MISSION OFFICE
Head
Anna Elisa D’Agostino
T: 06 8522 5989
Viale Romania, 32
00197 Roma
ricerca@luiss.it
Research Centers
Alessandra Paoletti
T: 06 8522 5826
Reference center: Research Center on Democracy
At the end of 2024, the ICEDD Research Center — International Center on Democracies and Democratizations — will become the Observatory on Democracy in the 21st Century. The Observatory studies democratization processes and the quality of democracy in different regions of the world through a multidisciplinary approach (primarily based on political science and contemporary history), which is both quantitative and qualitative, comparative and focused on specific case studies.
The Observatory’s areas of research include: political history, the history of public policies, media history; processes of democratic transition and consolidation; transformations and crises of democracies; democracy and authoritarianism; quality of democracy; the fate and transformations of European liberalism; political leadership in transitional processes; political risk analysis; local government; international security; justice and judicial systems.
The Observatory’s researchers, affiliated with both Luiss and other Italian universities, are organized into research units, observatories, and laboratories dedicated to specific topics. The Observatory also operates within a broad network of relationships with leading international research centers focused on democratization. This, combined with ongoing dialogue with businesses, policy-makers, and institutions, fosters the interdisciplinary nature of democratic politics research, promotes connections across different academic fields, and supports an innovative approach to the study of politics from historical, political, sociological, and economic perspectives. The awarding of numerous research grants, strong partnerships with businesses, close ties with institutions and other research centers, and the presence of highly internationalized scholars with extensive networks across Italian and foreign universities are among the key strengths of the Center. The results of the Observatory's research are disseminated through a rich program of seminars, conferences, and the publication of papers and books.