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Rethinking the Study of Political Participation: Leveraging Survey Data, Emerging Methods and Data Sources in the Post-Pandemic World |
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| Session Organisers | Ms Olga Li (Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin) Dr Marta Kołczyńska (Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences) Dr Micheál Collins (Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin) |
| Time | Tuesday 18 July, 09:00 - 10:30 |
| Room | |
Political participation lies at the core of democratic practice. From voting and protesting to online activism, citizens’ engagement in politics is vital to the functioning of modern democracies. While political participation has been extensively studied—often through survey data that provide valuable insights—new forms of participation, particularly in the post-pandemic world, present limitations to traditional approaches and introduce new challenges. By bringing together scholars who are advancing the study of political participation, this session aims to foster discussions on leveraging both traditional and emerging data sources to better understand citizens’ political engagement in the post-pandemic society.
The evolving landscape of political engagement, especially with the rise of non-traditional forms like online activism, requires a re-consideration of how we study these behaviors. General population surveys, though rich and informative, often struggle to capture these newer dynamics. Other data types, such as event datasets or protest surveys, have their own advantages as well as unique challenges. Integration of traditional and new data sources, such as social media analytics, digital traces, and visual data techniques, can help overcome the limitations of single data sources.
This session invites both substantive and methodological contributions that address these challenges, highlighting the potential of existing survey data and non-survey data sources to study political participation. We encourage papers that explore innovative methods such as the integration of survey data with digital traces, visual data analysis techniques and other cutting-edge approaches that offer fresh insights into political behavior. We welcome papers that tackle how these innovations can help overcome existing measurement and analytical limitations.
Keywords: political participation, survey data, emerging data sources
Mr Giorgio Dolci (University of Milan) - Presenting Author
Mr Giacomo Melli (University of Oxford)
Populism is now a notable feature of European democracies, sparking debate over its impact on democracy and political participation. Scholars have expressed concern about its effect on democratic regimes (Taggart, 2002), while others highlight its mobilisation potential (Anduiza et al., 2019; Canovan, 1999; Mouffe, 2005). Despite its growing relevance, the optimal operationalisation of populism, particularly at the individual level, remains unresolved. While populist attitudes are generally agreed to be multifaceted (Wuttke et al., 2020), this has rarely been tested in a broad comparative setting.
This paper aims to assess and validate the measurement of populist attitudes in Europe using data from the European Social Survey (ESS). Unlike prior studies that rely on ad-hoc questionnaires and limited samples (e.g., Akkerman et al., 2014), this research employs a comprehensive, theory-driven methodology better suited for cross-country comparisons.
We construct and validate multiple scales of populism based on data from Wave 10 of the ESS. A variety of methods are employed, including Measurement Invariance Analysis, Structural Equation Modelling, and Confirmatory Factor Analysis, in order to explore the associations between the overarching indices of populist attitudes, socio-demographic characteristics, other political attitudes, and the potential political implications, such as voting for a populist party.
The findings indicate that a reliable populism index can be constructed using data from Wave 10 of the European Social Survey. This approach offers new avenues for research and facilitates a comprehensive analysis of different aspects and consequences of populism. This paper proposes an open, democratic, and replicable approach to studying political attitudes as a potential solution to the replication crisis in the social sciences.
Dr Marta Kołczyńska (Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences) - Presenting Author
Dr Piotr Kocyba (Else Frenkel-Brunswik Institute, University of Leipzig)
Participants at public demonstrations differ depending on the nature of the events, but we cannot use general population surveys to measure this heterogeneity – because of the relatively small number of participants of protests in ‘classical’ surveys. Protest surveys, i.e., surveys distributed among participants at marches or rallies, are better suited for this purpose because they provide us with data exclusively from protest participants collected during and shortly after their participation in an event.
In this presentation we discuss the opportunities and challenges that protest survey create for scholars of political participation based on 22 protest surveys conducted in Warsaw in 2018-2024. Protest surveys attempt to minimize or control different types of bias through a strict protocol. To this end, teams of interviewers and pointers are formed, candidates for respondents are sampled from the crowd, and a short face-to-face screener interviews are conducted with about 20% of the approached protesters on-site. In addition, the questionnaire administration modes differ (classic paper questionnaire in a pre-paid envelope, email invitation, or a small flyer with a QR code or link to the online questionnaire).
We examine motivations, mobilization channels, ideological leanings, as well as socio-demographic characteristics of participants at public events in Warsaw, and compare the protest survey data to data from general population surveys, which serve as benchmarks for societal distributions of values and attitudes. Because the sample of events studied includes protests of different kinds (left-progressive protests, women’s demonstrations, anti-government and pro-government events, and far-right demonstrations), our data allow us not only to make statements about people who participate in public events in general, but also to describe protest participants at the level of certain related protest types (“protest families”).
Dr Alice Barth (University of Bonn) - Presenting Author
Dr Florian Fastenrath (University of Bonn)
Professor Paul Marx (University of Bonn)
Research on citizens’ political preferences and opinions heavily relies on responses to standardized survey items, e.g., when assessing opinion trends or the responsiveness of policymakers. In political psychology, however, it has recurrently been found that weak or ambivalent political preferences are widespread in the population. In addition, it is often argued that the formation of political attitudes, preferences and opinions is not solely an individual cognitive process, but rather takes place in communication and exchange with others. In line with this, recent studies showed significant differences between stated preferences in a standardized survey as compared to the same respondents’ position-taking in focus group discussions (Fastenrath & Marx 2024; Lindsey 2023).
Against this backdrop, we present findings from a study comparing respondents’ stated preferences on several political issues to the stance they take when discussing these issues in focus groups. We conducted 12 focus group discussions with about eight participants each, stratified by educational level and gender. One week before the group discussions, the participants received a survey with preference items as well as assessments of subjective importance on three policy areas: Redistributive policy, environmental policy and gender equality. The focus group discussions were structured according to the same thematic blocks. The independent coding of the positions expressed in the focus groups makes it possible to compare the preferences measured with both methods within a person, thus enabling comparisons between the two modes of preference measurement. A standardized survey conducted after the group discussions shows whether the “intervention” of discussing political issues in a group leads to preference change in terms of content or importance, and provides information in which mode participants feel more comfortable expressing political preferences.
Mr Joris Frese (European University Institute) - Presenting Author
Professor Simon Hix (European University Institute)
Professor Romain Lachat (Sciences Po Paris)
Voting-advice applications (VAAs) are increasingly popular, but their impact on electoral outcomes is contested among political scientists. To bring new and stronger evidence to this debate, we conducted the three largest VAA encouragement experiments to date (N=6,501) during the 2024 European Parliament elections in Germany, Italy, and France. By randomly embedding a voting-advice application into half of all pre-election surveys from a two-wave panel study fielded right before and after the elections, we were able to study the causal effects of VAA usage on a range of political participation outcomes. We found no significant effects of VAA usage on voter turnout, vote switching frequency, or political knowledge. However, leveraging original data from a VAA provider and a novel regression discontinuity design around proportional agreements (N=10,535), we observed that VAAs improved the quality of vote switching: users were more likely to vote for their top-recommended party. Overall, VAA effects are limited to their intended purpose: guiding voters toward ideologically aligned parties.
Dr YUE GUAN (Aarhus University) - Presenting Author
This study develops a 2×2 typology of political trust based on a conceptual distinction between trust in commitment and trust in competence. Ideal types for each of the four trust types are used to guide the clustering process, ensuring that observations are assigned to these conceptually derived trust types.
Applying this concept-driven clustering method to data from nationally representative surveys in select nondemocracies, this study finds that individuals with the same trust level may belong to different trust types. For example, among those who report trusting the government "a great deal," one-fourth express reservations about either its commitment or competence. Moreover, individuals in each trust type participate in political activities in different ways. In particular, those with high trust in government commitment but low trust in its competence, as well as those with low trust in both dimensions, are more likely to sign petitions, join boycotts, attend demonstrations, and go on strikes.
This study effectively categorises respondents into conceptually derived trust types, reveals the effects of trust types on political participation in nondemocracies, and illustrates the value of constrained clustering for measuring multidimensional constructs based on a priori theoretical conceptualisation.