Project description
Understanding patterns in state-citizen interactions across regions and population groups
Positive state-citizen interactions are crucial for social stability and economic growth. However, poor state performance can lead to vicious cycles, in which citizens’ unfavourable attitudes result in successes for anti-government parties and fewer qualified applicants for public sector jobs. This is a negative equilibrium. Conversely, in positive equilibria, effective states foster favourable citizen attitudes. The ERC-funded EQUILIBRIUM project will explore the possibility of escaping negative equilibria by examining their robustness and assessing distinct patterns across population groups. It provides novel methodological concepts in the form of equilibrium coherence and fragmentation. Moreover, it will use a sequential design that integrates observational data, public opinion surveys and bureaucratic inquiries from five European countries and the United States, providing policymakers with valuable insights.
Objective
The character of state-citizen interactions shapes social stability and economic growth, making it critical to social scientists. Sometimes these interactions appear in the form of vicious cycles, in which poor state performance reinforces negative population attitudes and vice versa. Specifically, citizens who have unfavourable views of the state due to low public service quality are more likely to elect parties that limit the state’s resources, which fortifies its poor performance. We may think of this situation as a “negative equilibrium”. Yet other regions have positive equilibria, in which effective states correspond to favourable citizen attitudes. This raises a critical question: Which factors allow regions to escape negative equilibria by shifting toward more positive population attitudes and more effective state institutions?
EQUILIBRIUM makes a ground-breaking contribution to our understanding of state-citizen equilibria by investigating the potential for change at the individual and regional levels. My goal is not only to examine equilibrium robustness, but also to assess if separate equilibria exist for different population groups. The project will further provide significant methodological innovation by developing new measures for equilibrium coherence and fragmentation—which I hypothesize shape the potential for change—and introducing a first-of-its-kind sequential multicomponent design that integrates observational data, public opinion surveys, and inquiries to bureaucracies.
Empirically, the project will break new ground through the collection of data across five European countries and the United States, allowing for cross- and within-case comparison. Furthermore, I intend to pool survey experiments with natural experiments.
This project will not only markedly improve our understanding of social equilibria, but its findings will be of direct relevance to policymakers. By rigorously assessing equilibrium durability, it will reveal paths for 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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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)
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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.
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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.
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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8000 Aarhus C
Denmark
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