Project description
Exploring democratic administration under populist rule
The ERC-funded LIBRAD project aims to explore how populist governments transform executive governance and how public administrations react to illiberal policymaking pressures. Focusing on regional governments across EU Member States, it will examine transformations in areas such as education, health, migration and law enforcement. It seeks to determine when public administrators resist or conform to illiberal pressures, offering new theoretical and practical tools to bolster democratic resilience within state institutions. The project will also assemble empirical data and formulate a novel theory on bureaucratic behaviour in ethically challenging situations, providing recommendations to strengthen administrative ethics and democratic governance.
Objective
LIBRAD investigates how populists in government reshape executive governance to implement illiberal policy changes. By covertly manipulating the machinery of government, populists erode pluralistic standards, reduce accountability, and politicize the civil service to advance their illiberal agenda.
Bureaucrats play a crucial role in this context. Populists both fear them as potential saboteurs of their ambitions and simultaneously need to rely on them to push their agenda.
To systematically examine the role of democratic bureaucracies when populists attempt to undermine liberal policymaking, LIBRAD analyses the performance and governance of populist governments at the subnational level in the European Union across areas such as health, education, law enforcement, and migration. It identifies how populists transform government organizations using a novel executive governance framework, advances an innovative group-based theory of bureaucratic behaviour in morally complex situations, and develops a new interactionist perspective on civil service ethics.
By empirically examining populist rule at the subnational level in EU member states and analysing executive transformations in a selected subsample, LIBRAD seeks to understand when bureaucrats resist to or comply with illiberal demands. The project combines theory testing on the impact of populist rule with theory generation, providing a new interactionist explanation for bureaucratic behaviour. Additionally, LIBRAD will offer practical recommendations to increase administrative resilience against illiberal state deformations and provide insights on enhancing democratic legitimacy through executive organizational reform.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-ADG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
50014 Fiesole
Italy
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.