Home center: Research Center on Democracy

The CESP, the Center for Parliamentary Studies, was established in 1995 as a research center focusing on the two chambers of the Italian Parliament. Over time, its scope expanded to include regional councils, the European Parliament, and the comparative analysis of other legislative assemblies.

CESP’s research areas include Italian and European Union parliamentary law; legislative techniques and trends in legislation; the history of Parliament; financial and parliamentary procedures; interparliamentary cooperation and support for parliaments in democratic transitions; and parliamentary sociology and statistics.

CESP is built on a traditionally very close bond between the study of parliamentary institutions (from a legal, historical, and political science perspective) and the officials of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. It enhances this bond by including current and former parliamentary advisors in its governing bodies. CESP is also involved in training and educational initiatives at various levels: courses on parliamentary law and the law of elective assemblies; legislative drafting workshops; a second-level master's degree in Parliament and Public Policy; an advanced course in legislative drafting; an Erasmus+ Joint Master's in Parliamentary Procedures and Legislative Drafting; preparation courses for parliamentary advisor competitions; and a summer program in Parliamentary Democracy in Europe.

The Center also oversees the “Percorsi - Diritto” publication series in collaboration with the Il Mulino publishing house.

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