Rethinking the Study of Political Participation: Leveraging Survey Data, Emerging Methods and Data Sources in the Post-Pandemic World |
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| Coordinator 1 | Ms Olga Li (Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin) |
| Coordinator 2 | Dr Marta Kołczyńska (Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences) |
| Coordinator 3 | Dr Micheál Collins (Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin) |
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.