Though some Democrats worry about a third-party candidate taking votes from Vice President Al Gore in the presidential election, students working for a Northwestern professor this summer learned that Gore has it easy — Peru, for example, has had 33 political parties in the last half-century.

The nine undergraduates and three graduate students at political science Prof. Kenneth Janda’s “summer camp” worked on the International Comparative Political Parties project.

Janda began the project with a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation soon after he arrived at NU in 1966. He then started researching 158 political parties in 53 countries with the help of NU undergraduates, some of whom now teach political science around the world.

Janda’s involvement in the project helped him earn the American Political Science Association’s Sam Eldersveld Lifetime Achievement Award on Aug. 31 for his study of political organizations and parties.

“It was not a Nobel Prize,” Janda said. “But it was the highest award that this particular group can give, so it was very nice to have it. Some very major figures in my field have gotten this award, and it was very nice to be mentioned with them.”

Weinberg senior Christina Orsini worked 30 hours a week for eight weeks this summer on Janda’s project, and by the end she dubbed herself an expert in Peruvian and Canadian politics.

“It ended up being a lot harder to find the information than I expected,” Orsini said, explaining that because many of the countries didn’t have information easily accessible on the Internet, she had to go to the library.

In addition to entering information on the project’s Web site (www.janda.org/icpp), the students researched and wrote essays about the evolution of various political parties.

Janda said he wanted to involve undergraduates in the project from the start because of their enthusiasm and willingness to ask questions.

He said he hopes to begin working on the project again this winter and to hire more students this summer.

For Orsini, working on ICPP was more than just a summer job.

“It opens your eyes a lot,” Orsini said. “You forget that the United States has a very special system.”

Because politics change so often, Janda said, he wants to allow scholars from other countries to send him information about their countries’ political parties. Then his task would be to collect and validate the information, instead of updating it himself.

Despite the extra work, the dynamic quality of politics makes it interesting, Janda said.

“It may be one of the most changing fields within the social sciences,” Janda said. “Every two years you know that there are significant new facts that come out.”