Projektbeschreibung
Fortgeschrittene statistische Methoden zur Untersuchung politischer Losverfahren
In jüngster Zeit wurden politische Losverfahren eingesetzt, um Bürgerinnen und Bürger nach dem Zufallsprinzip auszuwählen, damit sie Entscheidungen zu polarisierenden Themen wie Unzufriedenheit, Abtreibungsreform und Klimawandel treffen. Diese Losverfahren haben den Zugang zu Minderheiten erleichtert und dazu beigetragen, politische Konflikte durch robuste deliberative Systeme zu stabilisieren. Trotz ihrer potenziellen Bedeutung sind diese natürlichen Experimente mit Losverfahren jedoch nicht gründlich erforscht worden. Daher wird über das ERC-finanzierte Projekt POLLOT ein vergleichender Datensatz zu diesen politischen Losverfahren, Gesetzgebern, parlamentarischen Aktivitäten und Büros in ganz Europa zusammengestellt. Außerdem werden die Entscheidungen der zufällig zugewiesenen Gruppen innerhalb jedes natürlichen Experiments analysiert, indem auf frühere Experimente während der Demokratisierung in Europa zurückgegriffen und neue Losverfahren in heutigen Online-Bürgerversammlungen durchgeführt werden.
Ziel
Political lotteries randomly select individuals to take a political decision. Recently, lotteries have put citizens together to find solutions to today’s contentious, polarizing issues, such as disaffection, abortion reform, and climate change. What explains their varied success? Lotteries equalise opportunity of access to all. Random chance can strengthen those otherwise in the minority. A wider variety of opinions can also improve debate and reduce polarization. The ideal, but unfeasible experiment would randomly vary group characteristics, assign real political power, and observe effects over time. Instead, this project draws lessons from past experiments during democratisation in Europe - whereby legislators were randomly assigned to groups within legislatures - and experiments with lotteries in online citizens’ assemblies today. Lotteries ensured that minorities participated in deliberation in small groups, and were assigned influential legislative tasks. These natural experiments with lotteries have never before been investigated using modern statistical methods, and their role in opening access to politics is almost entirely absent from empirical studies of democratisation. This project compiles a novel, comparative dataset of these political lotteries, legislators, parliamentary activity and offices from different European countries. Next, the decisions of randomly assigned groups will be analysed within each natural experiment. A theory of debate in randomly drawn groups reducing polarization will be verified by cross-national comparison across experimental contexts, and in a present-day experiment that allows controlled conditions. By opening access to minorities and contributing to strong, deliberative party and committee systems, lotteries stabilised political conflict. They have the potential to do so again today. The research will help inform evidence-based innovation of our representative democracies, as experiments with lotteries have already begun.
Wissenschaftliches Gebiet
Schlüsselbegriffe
Programm/Programme
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Thema/Themen
Finanzierungsplan
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsGastgebende Einrichtung
75341 Paris
Frankreich