Interfaces for Democratic Participation: Deliberation, Mobilization and Contestation Since the Onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Amidst the rise in protest, democratic and scientific mistrust, as well as growing societal divisions and inequalities heightened by the Covid-19 pandemic, INTERFACED investigates the diverse forms of political participation that have arisen subsequently.

We approach the period since the onset of the pandemic as an opportunity to contribute to the destination Innovative Research on Democracy and Governance of the Work Programme, to its cardinal goal to reinvigorate democratic governance and empower active and inclusive citizenship.

We do so by distinguishing participation interfaces between citizens and representative institutions to then investigate their capacity to include citizens within decision-making and governance.

INTERFACED pursues seven specific objectives that move the analysis of these interfaces beyond the state-of-the-art with the aim to enhance relations between citizens and governments.

The objectives will be attained with a comprehensive methodological apparatus—combining large-scale surveys and experiments with computational, ethnographic, textual and comparative qualitative methods.

Together with the topical selection of a diverse set of eight European countries and Tunisia—spanning multiple forms of opposition, including opposition to authoritarianism—INTERFACED will thereby offer a systematic and inclusive basis from which to produce new and innovative research findings, and from which to scaffold policy recommendations to maximize the mobilization and minimize the demobilization of the least engaged and most disadvantaged social groups.