The Cevipof was created in 1960 following the intellectual heritage of the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques and the strong tradition of research on voting behaviour (electoral geography and sociology) and political parties and groups. This approach was inaugurated by André Siegfried at the beginning of the century and continued by François Goguel and Jean Touchard.

During the 1970s, it diversified its research activity, incorporating other research themes into its centres of interest such as, analysis of unionism and social movements, the media, understanding symbolic systems and analysis of phenomena linked to political socialisation.  It focused on new cleavages which were symptomatic of changes in French society in its post-industrial phase (cultural liberalism, post-materialist values, feminism and ecology).

From the beginning of the 1990s, research was also carried out on  the processes of individuation and political choice, putting the weight of classic sociological variables into perspective (social class and religion) and also on renewing approaches to the traditional actors (parties and unions analysed in terms of identity, culture and memory).

More recently, other research has focused on the crisis in political representation and the rise of different types of extremism in electoral terms, change and reshaping on the political landscape, the restructuring of the state and the analysis of public policies, together with the politicisation of new issues: immigration, suburban unrest, parity, the environment, law and order, etc.

In 2009, the Cevipof recentred its activity on the two areas which have characterised it historically: the analysis of political thought and ideas and the study of voting behaviour, political behaviour and attitudes together with political and social power.