Digital technology promises to expand political participation, increase the efficiency of public administration, and make participation in public debates accessible to all. But this enthusiasm goes hand in hand with concerns that digital tools are being misused to manipulate public opinion, influence elections, and surveil people. Certain aspects of digital technology are problematic, but opinions differ as to what exactly the problems are, and what exactly the state should do. Fabrizio Gilardi and his team are developing new theories and methods relying on large amounts of data to identify the development and effects of different discourses regarding the digitalization of democracy. The findings will help us to understand how our societies deal with the consequences of digital technology in the political sphere.
Jointly with Profs. David Dorn (director), Nir Jaimovich and Matthias Mahlmann, I co-direct the UZH Research Priority Program “Equality of Opportunities”. The URPP Equality of Opportunity aims to investigate the economic and societal changes that give rise to inequality. The researchers involved in the program will also analyze legal frameworks and political measures that help to increase equal opportunities for all members of a society. At IPZ, we conduct a sub-project that studies the politicization of economic inequalities and their political implications via survey experiments and focus groups. The project team consists of Tarik Abou-Chadi, Stefanie Walter, Tabea Palmtag, Delia Zollinger and myself. Also at IPZ, we support a range of excellent projects on political science inequality research through the IPZ Inequality Research Fund.
Does terrorism affect citizens' preference for democracy? I study the effect of terrorist attacks on preference for democracy in an event-study-like setting, by comparing reported preference for democracy shortly before and after terrorist attacks in several African countries. Alleviating the general concern that experiencing terrorism compromises preference for democracy, I document an average increase in preference for democracy. About 8% of those not preferring democracy are persuaded in favor of democracy. I find that the effect is particularly pronounced among individuals who evaluate their state as undemocratic. For individuals perceiving their state as democratic I find no adverse reaction to democracy. The empirical results are robust to a number of tests, including a correction for spatial confounding, which is a so far unaddressed issue in similar empirical setups. Preference change can be seen as a mechanism in the economic theory of political transition.
Joint project by myself, Simon Bornschier, Delia Zollinger, Lukas Haffert and Marco Steenbergen (all UZH) Read our article in the Comparative Political Studies. Electoral politics in advanced democracies have undergone major upheaval in recent decades. The last fifty years have seen the rise of culturally connoted identity politics and the relative decline of political conflict over economic state intervention. Party politics in many countries have changed beyond recognition. Strands of social cleavage theory constitute comprehensive attempts to make sense of these developments. They posit that socio-structural divisions are translated into politics through the mobilization of shared collective identities. However, many studies of social cleavages operate with outdated notions of socio-structural categories and mobilization patterns. Our project integrates theories and concepts of social identity theory, political psychology and social cleavage theory to study the formation of group identities, their mobilization and the formation of new cleavages structuring electoral politics in the 21st century through public opinion surveys in Germany, the UK, Switzerland and France.
DISINTEGRATION is a research project run by Stefanie Walter (University of Zurich) and funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant. It examines the mass politics of disintegration and pays particular attention how other voters, elites and governments in other countries respond to voter-endorsed challenges to international institutions. PUBLIC OPINION (WP 1): When and how does one country’s mass-based disintegration experience encourage or deter demands for disintegration in other countries? DOMESTIC DISCOURSE (WP 2): How are the contagion effects of mass-based disintegration transmitted through domestic elites and domestic discourse? DISINTEGRATION NEGOTIATIONS (WP 3): How do an international institution’s other member states respond to one member state’s mass-based disintegration bid? THEORIZING DISINTEGRATION (WP 4): Building a theory of mass-based disintegration. DISINTEGRATION is a research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program grant agreement No 817582 (ERC Consolidator Grant DISINTEGRATION, 2019-2024) and the University of Zurich.
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