Political elites—such as ministers, parliamentarians or local politicians—face numerous phenomena that are characterized by uncertainty, from pandemics, to artificial intelligence, to economic crises. Some of this uncertainty is resolvable and can be removed with more or better information; other uncertainty is radical and cannot. The overall aim of the RADIUNCE project is to develop a theory that explains politicians’ behavioral responses to both radically and resolvably uncertain phenomena—something about which remarkably little is known. When and why do politicians for example avoid uncertain phenomena, rely on heuristics (e.g. comparing Covid-19 to the flu), or apply all available means to address the uncertain phenomenon (i.e. responding comprehensively)? Examining this is urgent, because the responses directly impact democracies’ effectiveness in solving problems. For example, avoiding a virus can cost lives; using heuristics can lead to flawed decisions; and a comprehensive approach is both time consuming and ineffective when the uncertainty is radical in nature.
RADIUNCE addresses three key problems in the field: First, the lack of theory on radical uncertainty; second, the lack of comparative data from politicians themselves; and third, the lack of empirical evidence of how individual and institutional factors shape politicians’ responses to uncertainty. Its objectives are to:
1. Identify and map how politicians in four countries with different opportunities and constraints of responding to uncertainty—Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US—have responded to radically and resolvably uncertain phenomena between 1996 and 2024.
2. Explain variation in these responses across countries, politicians, and over time.
3. Reveal how these responses influence democracies’ effectiveness in solving problems.
To achieve this, RADIUNCE adopts a multidisciplinary approach, integrating insights from political science, public administration, decision science, psychology, and behavioral economics. It also collects new, comparative data from politicians through an innovative combination of automated text analysis and survey experiments. Using a multimethod approach, it combines quantitative techniques with qualitative methods like process tracing, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), and interviews. The outcome will be a new theoretical model of political elite behavior that puts radical uncertainty at the center of political decision making.
