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Politikwissenschaft (Bailer)

Projects & Collaborations

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When and why do citizens distrust politicians? The role of the representative function

Research Project  | 4 Project Members

Die neuere Forschung wie auch die öffentliche Debatte gehen davon aus, dass die Politik einer Vertrauenskrise ausgesetzt ist. Diese Krise betrifft nicht nur die institutionelle, sondern auch die individuelle Ebene von Politik. Dies muss als Herausforderungen für die Demokratie begriffen werden, da die personelle Ebene der Politik ein wichtiges Scharnier in der Politikvermittlung darstellt. Das Projekt geht daher der Frage nach, wann und warum Bürger*innen Vertrauen in individuelle Politiker*innen entwickeln. Hierbei betonen wir die Rolle der politischen Repräsentation als eine der massgeblichen Determinanten für politisches Vertrauen. Erstens untersuchen wir das Gefühl der Bürger*innen, in der Politik repräsentiert zu werden, und analysieren, wie sich dies auf das politische Vertrauen auswirkt. Zweitens und drittens sehen wir die deskriptive und substantielle Repräsentation als wichtige Einflussgrößen für die Einstellungen der Bürger*innen zur Politik. Vertrauen entsteht aus dieser Sicht dann, wenn Bürger*innen durch Mitglieder der gleichen sozialen Gruppe im Parlament vertreten werden oder durch Abgeordnete, die sichtbar deren Interessen im politischen Prozess vertreten. Viertens erforschen wir das Zusammenspiel zwischen deskriptiver und substantieller Repräsentation und deren Auswirkung auf das politische Vertrauen. Hierbei wird erwartet, dass deskriptive Repräsentant*innen, die sich für die Belange ihrer sozialen Gruppe einsetzen, die höchsten Werte an politischem Vertrauen erzeugen. Zur Untersuchung dieser Fragen wenden wir einen Large-N-Umfrage-basierten Ansatz an und führen Survey-Experimente mit Bürger*innen durch, die der Frage nachgehen, wie ihr politisches Vertrauen auf unterschiedliche Konfigurationen von deskriptiver und inhaltlicher Repräsentation reagiert.

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Video for Scientific Outreach of the Research Network Responsible Digital Society

Research Networks of the University of Basel  | 8 Project Members

The research network "Responsible Digital Society" is involved in a variety of ways to strengthen the promotion of interdisciplinary exchange and cooperative research in the field of digital transformation.

In the area of research, the network creates forums for regular scientific exchange and supports the coordination of interdisciplinary research proposals. In the area of promoting young researchers, the network organizes summer and winter schools for them. In the area of networking, the network promotes regular exchanges with industrial partners in the region. In the area of outreach, the network strengthens the public dialogue by organizing colloquia and panel discussions on digitization with guests from various disciplines.

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Visual Politician

Research Project  | 4 Project Members

VIP - the VIsual Politician Citizens and especially the younger generations increasingly turn towards digital forms of information when they update themselves about political matters: Not only do established media invest in their online presence, social media platforms also allow politicians to distribute information more directly and without an intermediary (eg. Kruikemeier, Van Noort et al. 2013, Rauchfleisch and Metag 2015). We aim to shed new light in this field of representative- voter communication by analyzing how politicians use visuals in their online communication with voters and how they react to it. In particular, the use of images (visuals) has mostly been neglected or investigated on a small scale (see e.g.Kruikemeier, Gattermann et al. 2018) since it is technically demanding. However, visual - photos and videos - of politicians in social media are of particular interest since visuals have the potential to have a different effect than verbal communication. Visuals show a more human image of politicians (Loader, Vromen et al. 2016) and have the potential to transmit personalized information better than ideas (Zamora 2010) and have a stronger emotional effect (Samuel-Azran, Yarchi et al. 2018). Online news consumption has been linked to the filter bubble and echo chamber by various authors (Conover, Ratkiewicz et al. 2011, Bessi, Coletto et al. 2015, DiFranzo and Gloria-Garcia 2017). Both terms capture the notion that users on social media have a tendency to build homogeneous communities with polarized views of the world. Thus, we will track how visuals are shared, quoted, or re-used otherwise. This audience engagement plays a particularly central role in politicians - voter communication since it gives a measure how users react to the signals sent by politicians (Metz, Kruikemeier et al. 2019). This will be done based on existing applications (e.g. TwitterStand (Sankaranarayanan, Samet et al. 2009)) which need to be further developed to include visual information. In a last part of the project, we will focus on the perception of visual information by politicians and study experimentally how citizens react to it.

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New Relations Between Voters and Representatives in the Age of Social Media

Research Project  | 4 Project Members

This project aims to lay the groundwork for a deeper understanding of the relation between voters and elected representatives in the age of social media. Social media platforms like Twitter carry the potential to transform democracies as they allow for direct contact between politicians and voters and thus for more personalized contact between representatives and represented. Academic work on this topic, however, has so far remained highly descriptive and has focussed on the frequency or volume of social media usage by politicians and not so much on the content of their messages. As a result, we lack knowledge about the information politicians portray in social media activity, as well as what the effect of this communication is, e.g. how voters perceive it. The two studies presented in this proposal intend to target this important research gap and to analyse the micro-processes of the content of online communication and how voters perceive it. Study 1 ('What Do Politicians Tweet When? New Quantitative Insight Into the Strategic Use of Personality Traits and Policy Positions') is an observational study that investigates the tweets of a sample of Swiss and German politicians with the help of machine-learning to find out more about the motivations of politicians to tweet. We focus on Twitter as direct and individualized behaviour is best captured with this platform. Following key ideas in the representation and personalisation literature, we focus specifically on the distinction between personal or policy focussed content and investigate whether the content of the tweets depends on variables such as the incentive to cultivate a personal vote, professionalization of parties and parliament, or career stage in comparative perspective - information that is already available from the SNF project on "Parliamentary careers in comparison" . Study 2 ('What do voters want: Policy or Person') is a two country survey including an experiment that investigates how voters use social media for political purposes and which information they seek in these platforms. A short survey experiment focuses on how feelings of representation and voting intentions of voters are affected by the content of the twitter message that politicians share via social media and whether voters rather appreciate personal appeals about the politicians or information about policy positions and activities communicated via Twitter. Using an innovative survey design, we first extract the demographic personal profile and policy preferences of the participants. We then use this information to present subjects with candidate profiles and Tweets from politicians that are (dis)similar to them on these key dimensions. As such we contribute to the question whether voters appreciate politicians similar or dissimilar to their own personal profile (desire for descriptive representation) and feel better represented by politicians who are like them or who act on their behalf (desire for substantive representation). The conduct of these studies in Switzerland and Germany allows for a first insight on variation on relevant influencing variables such as the election system, the importance of parties and the professionalization of the parliamentary system. Importantly, this project forms the base for a larger research agenda that we aim to develop in the next years and where we want to further explore the potential of social media in fostering closer linkages between voters and politicians.

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IMAJINE-Integrative Mechanisms for Addressing Spatial Justice and Territorial Inequalities in Europe

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

Edina Szöcsik and her team have leading roles in work packages four (WP4) and seven (WP7) of the "IMAJINE" Horizon 2 020 project. Work Package 7: Regionalist Movements and Social, Economic and Spatial Justice Across Europe, regionalist movements claiming to represent historically, culturally, linguistically and/or economically distinct groups within the state's territory are increasingly seeking to challenge the stability and integrity of existing territorial structures of governance. In particular, regionalist parties have become enduring and influential players in regional and (in some cases) state-level political arenas. In many cases, they have been successful in achieving greater self-government for their sub-state territories. In some cases, they even question the territorial framework of the state altogether by demanding independence . The key feature of regionalist mobilisation is the pursuit of some form of 'sub-state territorial empowerment' in the name of a specific territorial group within the state's boundaries - be it referred to as a region, nation or people - which has a distinctive territorial identity (e.g. based on ethnicity, language, culture and/or traditions) and interests (economic, cultural, political, social and/or symbolic in nature). WP7 analyses how regionalist actors justify their territorial claims. It aims to study (1) the factors that influence framing strategies of regionalist actors and (2) the electoral consequences of regionalist actors' framing strategies. The comparative analysisof regionalist movements' demands and framing strategies includes twelve regions across eight European states : Scotland and Wales (UK); Catalonia and Galicia (Spain); Corsica (France); Bavaria (Germany); Aosta Valley, Northern Italy and Sardinia (Italy); Friesland (Netherlands); the Kashubian minority/Kashubia (Poland); and the Hungarian minority/the Szeklerland (Romania). The analysis relies on a computer assisted qualitative content analysis of regionalist parties' and civil society organisations' programmatic documents within the time period 1990-2018 and interviews with the leaders of these organisations. The project partners of WP7 are: Aberystwyth University (UK), TU Dresden (DE), Polish Academy of Sciences (PL), Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (NL), Università degli Studi di Siena (IT), Universität Basel (CH) Work Package 4: Experimental Survey on Solidarity and Territorial Cohesion WP4 explores public attitudes towards regional autonomy, territorial cohesion, solidarity and mobility in seven EU member states. Surprisingly, although territorial inequalities and cohesion policies within both countries and the EU play a key role in policy agendas, the political science literature has paid little attention to mass attitudes on these issues. By conducting an experimental survey, this work package provides original, cross-national data to produce valid causal inferences about the determinants of mass attitudes towards territorial cohesion. It complements WP7 and other work packages by unravelling citizens' perspectives and attitudes towards territorial cohesion, solidarity and spatial justice . The experimental survey covers seven EU member states : France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and Spain. These countries have been selected on the basis of geographical and demographic features, patterns of territorial inequality and regional distinctiveness. The project partners of WP4 are: Aberystwyth University (UK), TNS Opinion, Università degli Studi di Siena (IT), Università degli Studi 'G. d'Annunzio' Chieti-Pescara (IT), Universität Basel (CH)