Is part of The Comparative Candidate Survey (CCS), an international study of recruitment, campaigning, issue orientations and attitudes of candidates at national legislative elections that has covered until now 49 elections in more than 24 countries. Median Research Centre surveyed the Romanian candidates at the 2012 and 2016 parliamentary elections and the resulting datasets were included in the first and second wave of the Comparative Candidate Survey.

The datasets of both studies can be downloaded together with the other CCS wave I and II surveys from the FORS data archive at the University of Lausanne. The Romanian Candidate Study data was used in a number of publications in international peer review journals, edited volume chapters and conference papers.

The first Romanian Candidate Study was conducted after the 2012 parliamentary elections, as part of a larger study that aimed to analyze the connection between the electoral face of political competition (i.e. campaigning) and parliamentary behaviour in Romania. The response rate was 22.6%, 407 candidates completing the survey.

The second Romanian Candidate Study took place after the 2016 parliamentary elections and included beyond the CCS questionnaire a series of items regarding anti-prejudice norms and their determinants among Romanian political elites that were related to the MRC’s Less Hate More Speech EEA project. Overall, 394 candidates participated in the 2016 survey, which amounts to a response rate of 20.4%.