Speakers:
- Mónica Ferrín, University of A Coruña
- Claudia Landwehr, University of Mainz
- Enrique Hernandez, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Abstract
A new report that analyses the latest European Social Survey (ESS) data measuring attitudes towards democracy in 31 countries will be launched at this online event.
The report primarily focuses on survey responses to questions about people’s understanding and evaluation of democracy, collected across Europe from 2020-22.
Around 30 questions on the topic were first asked in Round 6 (2012/13) of the survey, with the majority of these questions repeated in the latest round.
The authors will launch the report - Understandings and Evaluations of Democracy: Topline results from rounds 6 and 10 of the ESS - at this webinar on Tuesday 24 October.
Mónica Ferrín (University of A Coruña), Claudia Landwehr (University of Mainz), and Enrique Hernandez (Autonomous University of Barcelona) will initially introduce the models of democracy and how they were measured.
The survey measured support for electoral, liberal, social and direct democracy in both rounds but a populist model was added to the most recent round.
They will also discuss respondents’ views about the importance of democracy and how they feel it operates in reality.
The report establishes whether the importance and evaluations of democracy have remained stable or changed over the past decade.
The authors were members of the Questionnaire Design Team (QDT) that developed this repeat module on democracy.
Other QDT members were: Hanspeter Kriesi (European University Institute) and Levente Littvay (Central European University).
As part of the launch event, attendees will be the first people to receive a copy of the report.
The ESS, headquartered at City, University of London, is an academically driven cross-national survey that has been conducted across Europe since 2002/03.
Every two years, face-to-face interviews are conducted with newly selected, cross-sectional samples, representative of the national population in each country.
Due to national measures to help prevent the spread of Coronavirus, nine countries conducted Round 10 fieldwork using self-completion methods.
The event will be chaired by ESS Deputy Director, Dr. Eric Harrison.
About the speakers
Mónica Ferrín is an InTalent and Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Faculty of Sociology, University of A Coruña.
Before moving to A Coruña, she worked at Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin, and at the University of Zürich.
Her research focuses on citizens’ democratic attitudes and gender inequality in public involvement.
She is also interested in understanding the gender gap in democratic participation.
Claudia Landwehr is professor of political theory and public policy at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
Her work focusses on democratic theory, citizens’ conceptions of democracy and process preferences.
She has recently edited the book “Contested Representation. Challenges, Shortcomings and Reforms” (Cambridge University Press 2022, with Thomas Saalfeld and Armin Schäfer) and has published articles in journals including American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science and The Journal of Political Philosophy.
Enrique Hernández is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).
He completed a PhD in Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in 2016.
Enrique’s main research interests are political attitudes, public opinion, electoral behavior, and democracy. Enrique is the PI of the DEMOTRADEOFF project, funded through an ERC Starting Grant.
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