The DEMOS assumes that populism is symptomatic of a disconnect between how democratic polities operate and how citizens perceive their aspirations, needs and identities within the political system. DEMOS explores the value of ‘democratic efficacy’ as the condition of political engagement needed to address the challenge of populism—the concept combines attitudinal features (political efficacy), political skills, knowledge, and democratic opportunity structures.
DEMOS addresses hitherto under-researched aspects of populism at micro-, meso-, and macro-levels: its socio-psychological roots, social actors’ responses to the populist challenge, and populist governance. DEMOS focuses not only on the polity, but also on citizens’ perspectives: how they are affected by and react to populism. Attention is given to groups under-represented in politics or targeted by populist politics (e.g. the youth, women, and immigrants. As populism has varying socially embedded manifestations, DEMOS contextualises it through the comparative analysis of the variety of populisms across Europe, including their historical, cultural, and socio-economic roots, manifestations and impacts. DEMOS develops indicators and predictors of populism and elaborates scenarios on its interactions with social actors and institutions both at the national and the EU levels.
The importance of the project stems from the spread of populist sentiments and politics across Europe and the potentially negative impact it has on society. Populism fosters social polarisation by nurturing an essentially Manichean world view, dividing the society into ‘Us’ and ‘Them’—which is prone to weaken social cohesion. The political logic of populism is about unmediated, un-institutionalised support from the people towards the leaders—populism tends to undermine the institutions and legitimacy of liberal democracies and the rule of law. Populism spreads distrust towards mainstream politics and conspiracy theories—therefore damages social cooperation and the ideal of informed citizenship. Yet, the impact of populism should not be conceived only in negative terms but rather regarded as an alarm, signalling problems about how politics work and why social integration is at risk. Analysing populism should shed light on how our societies work; what social problems are to be addressed and how.
DEMOS is:
a. Developing recommendations on legal, institutional and policy reforms to strengthen democratic efficacy based also on the role of institutional contexts in either providing opportunities for, or constraining populism.
b. Studying the role of schools, education systems, and educational materials in reinforcing or damaging democratic efficacy through reactions to populism in the classroom—accounting for coping strategies and practical solutions by principals, teachers and youth organisations.
c. Developing tools and projects susceptible to increase democratic efficacy and address populism in terms of deliberative settings, media-use and informational efficacy, identity-reinforcement and emotion-management, including role-playing, educational resources on building resilience against fake news, and developing political skills that help deal with policy issues.
d. Developing communication platforms with stakeholders: gathering (in a bottom-up approach) and sharing best practices, successful coping strategies and disseminating the project to a variety of stakeholders, including the scientific community, policymakers, journalists and the public.
e. Elaborating the concept of democratic efficacy, including possible indicators to measure it, and its relation to populism and the implications stemming from this relationship.
f. Contributing to the academic literature on populism particularly in the fields of the psychology of populism; social interpretations of, and reactions to, populism; and populist governance.
