Objective A well-functioning democracy implies that political actors are aware of the real problems in society, their potential solutions, and the associated preferences of citizens. This requires information about the real world. This project examines how individual political actors process information coming out of society. Its goal is to lay bare the patterns whereby exposure to certain types of information regarding problems lead to specific forms of attention to that information triggering particular kinds of action by political actors. For the first time, this project tackles the information-processing of political actors in a direct, encompassing and comparative manner. Drawing on previous work on agenda-setting, on bounded rationality and on representation the project first develops a theory of individual political actors’ dealing with information. Information-processing depends on properties of the source of information, of the message itself, and of the receiver of the information. Laying bare the information streams and information-processing of political actors is complex. The study assesses the behavior of political actors in three countries (Belgium, Canada and Israel) and across actors’ different institutional positions (MPs, ministers, party leaders). I expect to find differences between institutional position of actors and between nations. In fact, the countries under study have very different political systems which should lead to a different information-processing behavior of elites. The heart of the empirical part of the project is an in-depth, almost ethnographic study of the information-processing of fifty politicians in each country. These actors are observed relying on (a) time-budgeting, (b) participatory observation, and (c) interviews. Apart from this sample of fifty actors, the entire population (or a large sample) of political actors will be scrutinized using (d) surveys, (e) experiments, and (f) behavioral records. Fields of science social sciencespolitical sciencesgovernment systemsdemocracy Programme(s) FP7-IDEAS-ERC - Specific programme: "Ideas" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) ERC-AG-SH2 - ERC Advanced Grant - Institutions, values, beliefs and behaviour Call for proposal ERC-2011-ADG_20110406 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-AG - ERC Advanced Grant Coordinator UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN Address Prinsstraat 13 2000 Antwerpen Belgium See on map Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments projects.administrative_contact Anne Adams (Ms.) projects.principal_investigator Stefaan Johan Aloys Walgrave (Prof.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window EU contribution € 1 693 444,08 Beneficiaries (4) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN Belgium EU contribution € 1 693 444,08 Address Prinsstraat 13 2000 Antwerpen See on map Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments projects.administrative_contact Anne Adams (Ms.) projects.principal_investigator Stefaan Johan Aloys Walgrave (Prof.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window ROYAL INSTITUTION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING MCGILL UNIVERSITY Participation ended Canada EU contribution € 96 676,99 Address 845 sherbrooke street west H3A0G4 Montreal See on map Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments projects.administrative_contact Martyn Liness (Mr.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM Israel EU contribution € 492 338,40 Address Edmond j safra campus givat ram 91904 Jerusalem See on map Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments projects.administrative_contact Jane Turner (Ms.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO Canada EU contribution € 214 940,50 Address Kings college circle 27 M5S 1A1 Toronto See on map Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments projects.administrative_contact Krista Montgomery (Ms.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window
