During the first reporting period, the Consortium was dedicated to laying the theoretical and empirical foundations of the project. Major advancements involved developing and applying the analytical framework and designing data collection enterprises (survey, experiments, Delphi, Focus Groups). Although the diagnosis of the representative disconnect and the evaluation of “reconnection” and “redirection” strategies will be explored in the mature phase of the project, some progress has been made.
Analytical Framework
REDIRECT focused on two basic theoretical objectives: 1) analysing how the “representative system” is embedded in a broader “representative ecology;” 2) offering a more rounded view of what is regarded as the crisis of democracy and, the “representative disconnect.”
REDIRECT argues that to understand democratic representation, this must be studied comprehensively: assessing how the institutional parts of the representative system (legislative assemblies, parties) interact with processes, forms, and political agents within a broader representative ecology (civil society, advocacy organisations, media, social movements, etc.). It is in this interaction that identities, discourses, and opinions are formed, mobilised, and made politically relevant and democratically legitimate.
Regarding the “representative disconnect,” REDIRECT’s approach overcomes the limitation of previous research, which focused solely on studies of the changing attitudes and behaviour of citizens and political elites seen in isolation from each other. It maintains that these processes are mutually constitutive. The work done so far confirms that all aspects of democratic representation have undergone transformations and metamorphoses, justifying an interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach to diagnosing the representative disconnect.
Application of the Framework
REDIRECT aims to design a complex research strategy for the empirical diagnosis of the “representative disconnect.” The Consortium targeted methodological objectives concerning the framework's application. This effort included conceptualisation and operationalisation of the disconnect and identifying relevant secondary survey data for analysis of its different dimensions at both citizen and political elite levels.
The “Registry of datasets and relevant survey items” provided a conceptual map and a quantitative overview of selected surveys and items. This deliverable inspects 11 citizens’ surveys covering 27 European Union countries, Norway, and the United Kingdom over the past 50 years, along with 49 political elite surveys spanning 43 democracies over 70 years. It provides a valuable source of information for the secondary analysis of how the representative disconnect has manifested and evolved over time. Importantly, it has prompted the Consortium to start working on designing the REDIRECT original mass and elite survey.
Diagnostic Analysis of the Representative Disconnect
Although the analysis of the drivers and implications of the disconnect will start only in later stages, some relevant steps have been taken, already. This includes designing online experiments to analyse the interconnection between responsiveness, trust, participation and the “affective” component of the disconnect. The “Protocol for running a two-round online experiment” presents the design of a vignette experiment and a self-report questionnaire to be administered online in four countries (Norway, Poland, UK, and Italy). It also reports the results of a small-scale pilot study in Italy with interesting findings.
Two-Pronged Strategy for Rectification
REDIRECT proposes to develop strategies and practices for rectifying the representative disconnect, differing from previous studies. This involves identifying and assessing “reconnection” and “redirection” strategies and involving stakeholders and experts in specific research activities and dissemination events.
In the first period, the Consortium aimed to identify a “List of reconnection strategies” to analyse in view of the Delphi exercise. Then, progress has been made with designing Focus Group Interviews for re-imagining representative democracy and identifying redirection strategies. The “Youth Focus Group: Pilot and Protocols” presents the approach to studying political imagination and details two pilot focus groups conducted in Brussels and Krakow.
Also, the Consortium produced a “Database of relevant stakeholders,” a catalogue of a thousand entities (ca) potentially interested in engaging with the network. This tool will enhance policy and social impact.
