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Beschreibung des Vorhabens – Projektanträge
Claudia Landwehr, Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Professorin
Thomas Saalfeld, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Professor
Armin Schäfer, Universität Osnabrück, Professor
Project Description
1
State of the Art and Preliminary Work
Most major advanced liberal democracies are facing trying times with new challenges for policy
makers, established institutions and, hence, political science research. Not only have
developments such as the recent crises of financial markets and sovereign debt contributed to the
creation of new policy instruments, they have simultaneously had serious implications for the very
working of democratic institutions and democratic legitimacy. While some of these developments
appeared as relatively sudden shocks, other fundamental challenges have been in the making for
some time. Climate change, demographic change and immigration, or the growing levels of social
inequality in highly developed market economies, all of these developments resemble slow-moving
yet powerful glaciers rather than the sudden ‘earthquake’-type shock referred to at the beginning.
Nevertheless, like glaciers, they are capable of causing great tectonic destruction. Like the more
sudden crises, they may require new technical instruments at the disposal of policy makers.
Beyond questions of effectiveness, these new instruments have affected the ways democratic
institutions work. The problem of parliamentary accountability during the so-called ‘Euro crisis’ or
the tension between security and the right to privacy in the face of growing commercial and stateled surveillance of personal communication data are cases in point.
The project ‘Anxieties of Democracy’ initially addressed a number of crucial challenges to the
United States political system. The German/European-US research collaboration proposed here
seeks to extend some core ideas of ‘Anxieties of Democracy’, build on them and probe them in a
stronger comparative framework. This added comparative dimension will allow researchers to
explore even more rigorously the implications of challenges of the type mentioned above a number
of institutional frameworks. Starting from such normative questions surrounding the functioning of
representative democracy in times of stress, we are proposing a research program that focuses (a)
on problems of inequality in political involvement and representation; and (b) government
performance and institutional reforms in the face of policy problems that challenge traditional
democratic institutional solutions (both in terms of effectiveness and legitimacy). Both aspects are
studied (c) in the context of specific policy environments that make the challenges referred to
above particularly visible.
In his sketch of the project ‘Anxieties of Democracy’, Katznelson (2013) made a powerful case for
revisiting the behavioral and institutional effects of challenges of the type sketched above. His
outline poses the question how key characteristics of modern liberal democracies have been
affected by such developments: the participation of citizens; the permeability of the state to their
preferences; the significance of political parties as crucial agents of linkage; and the role of
legislatures as the most important institutional hinge connecting the people and the state, ensuring
transparency and accountability and safeguarding the centrality of lawmaking as the main
mechanism for the ‘authoritative allocations of values’ in a society, to borrow Easton’s (1967)
famous phrase. It is undisputed that there has been widespread elite concern about whether the
core institutions of representative democracies—elections, mass media, political parties, interest
groups, social movements, and, especially, legislatures that connect citizens and civil society to the
political system—can still capably address the policy challenges of our time. Katznelson identified
three types of ‘doubts’ in this context, namely (a) the capacity of citizens to equally and impartially
access and influence political life, (b) the ‘physics of consent’ and ‘the dignity of legislation’
(Waldron 1999) and (c) effective governing. This concern at the elite level (for one example see
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Crouch 2014) is mirrored by a certain amount of criticism of, and disengagement from,
institutionalized politics at the mass level and the rise of populist parties and movements
questioning the very process of representative liberal democracy (Pharr/Putnam 2000).
Figure 1: Three thematic areas for investigation
The proposed collaboration between German/European and US political scientists is oriented to
stimulate innovative research by pooling expertise across countries and sub-disciplinary
boundaries and by setting out a forward-looking agenda that addresses crucial challenges to liberal
democracies. The project revolves around three areas of scholarship: The main substantive areas
of interest are summarized in Figure 1, above, and will be developed in more detail in the course of
this proposal. The first area follows directly from Katznelson’s first set of ‘doubts’ surrounding
political participation, access to the political process and phenomena of exclusion from it. The
second set of question revolves around the machinery of representative government itself,
especially the tension between a system’s capacity to generate technically adequate solutions to
solve large-scale, long-term and trans-border problems on the one hand while simultaneously
maintaining elite responsiveness to voter preferences (rather than relying on technocratic,
electorally unaccountable institutions) on the other.
In substantive terms the collaboration will focus on some pressing and under-researched problems
stemming from the short time horizons imposed by electoral cycles and (relative to the trans-border
nature of problems) narrow territorial principles of democratic representation and accountability.
These challenges can be illuminated and understood best, if explored in the context of well-chosen
policy areas such as those selected for special consideration in this project. Scholars on the
various research teams will thus focus, first, on democratic solutions to the tension between the
time horizons and ‘myopic’ incentives of elected politicians on the one hand and the long-term
nature of the chosen policy problem on the other. Climate policy, demography/immigration and
public finances constitute such policy challenges, which will be major foci of the proposed
collaboration. Second, not only do serious coordination problems arise when the social costs and
benefits of policies occur with a time lag beyond a single electoral cycle. In the past years, a great
deal of attention has been paid to policy problems that transcend the borders of democratic nation
states (Zürn/Walter-Drop 2011). Yet international coordination often reaches its limits of
effectiveness and democratic legitimacy when national (and sometimes sub-national) economic
and strategic interests are affected. Although the European Union, for example, seems to be one
of the most developed transnational structures to tackle such coordination problems by pooling
sovereignty, the fierce conflicts over the rescue packages for vulnerable governments within the
Euro area or the disagreement over the allocation of refugees across the EU demonstrate the
strength of national interests. The inability of nation states to agree on effective regimes for the use
of fossil fuel and jointly to develop strategies for fighting climate change are further cases in point.
Even where coordination seems successful from a technical perspective, it may throw up new
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problems of democratic legitimacy as in the European Union, when high policy uncertainty and low
popular involvement contribute to phenomena such as ‘Euroscepticism’ (Hobolt/Tilley 2014).
The topics proposed for the transatlantic cooperation have generated a significant amount of
outstanding scholarship both in the United States and in Germany. However, current research –
developed though it is – has at least five general shortcomings, which are to be addressed with the
proposed format: First, under the conditions of ‘normal science’ (to borrow Kuhn’s [1970] phrase),
normative and empirical scholars have increasingly grown apart and enjoy but a few opportunities
for a sustained discussion of innovative, forward-looking and integrative research agendas beyond
the confines of existing research groups and projects. Second, national traditions, research
cultures and funding opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic have not always been sufficiently
sustained to foster effective cooperation and comparative work, which is essential to ensure that
localized studies are sufficiently generalizable beyond a particular national setting. Third, existing
international collaborations are necessarily focused on well-defined but narrow research questions.
Although there is usually a general realization that specific issues have to be understood in their
wider context, this is often not possible to achieve. Fourth, most exchanges of ideas (e.g., at
international conferences) are short-term and do not lend themselves to more cumulative, longerterm debates with at least some feedback loops. Fifth, due to its technical nature, methodologically
rigorous research is often hard to communicate to a wider public. As a result, the policy impact of
comparative empirical research projects could be stronger. Our proposal seeks to address these
five problems and proposes a sustained three-year program that creates a forum for shaping such
innovative research agendas, promoting links amongst a variety of scholars across national and
generational boundaries and fostering transatlantic research collaboration including the stimulation
of joint grant applications of German/European and US researchers.
All three applicants on the German side have contributed to internationally visible research on key
issues contained in this proposal:
Claudia Landwehr works on theories of deliberative democracy (Landwehr 2009b, 2010),
democratic innovations and challenges of legitimate and effective political decision-making under
conditions of complexity, high information requirements and competing interests (Landwehr 2009c,
2015, Landwehr/Böhm 2011). In 2013, she organized a citizen conference on decision-making
procedures, aiming to explore citizens’ conceptions of democratic legitimacy and procedural justice
(Landwehr 2014). She is currently working on projects that explore citizens’ normative conceptions
of democracy and their preferences over democratic innovations, as well as the potential
distributive implications of democratic innovations that are presently under discussion.
Thomas Saalfeld works both on the capacity of people equally and impartially to access and
influence political life in the context of immigration as well as the ‘physics of consent’. In the former
area, he has published work on the representation of citizens of immigrant origin in a number of
European parliaments, investigating obstacles to descriptive and substantive representation
(Bird/Saalfeld/Wüst 2011; Saalfeld 2011; Saalfeld/Bischof 2013; Wüst/Saalfeld 2011). In the latter
area, he has worked extensively on legislative parties as crucial agents of legislative politics
(Saalfeld 1995; Saalfeld/Strøm 2014); on executive accountability in parliamentary systems of
government (Saalfeld 2000); legislative decision-making in European democracies
(Becker/Saalfeld 2004); the role of national parliaments holding national governments accountable
for their role in EU decisions (Saalfeld 2003; 2005); and on cabinet stability in the face of economic
challenges (e.g., Saalfeld 2013).
Armin Schäfer works on the topic European integration from a comparative political economy
perspective. In particular, he has analyzed how the free-market principles of the EU conflict with
national varieties of capitalism and might threaten their viability (Höpner/Schäfer 2010; 2012). A
more recent focus has been on the interplay of social and political inequality in times of austerity
(Schäfer/Streeck 2013). From a comparative perspective, he has looked at the impact of income
inequality and electoral turnout both at the aggregate level and at the individual level (Schäfer
2010; 2013; 2015). In another project he has gathered electoral data at the level of urban quarters
for the 30 largest German cities and analyzed how measure of social deprivation correlate with
electoral turnout (Schäfer 2012; Schäfer/Roßteutscher 2015). He is currently working on a project
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that looks at policy preferences of different social groups in Germany over a period of thirty years
to investigate whether the Bundestag is equally responsive to different social classes.
In addition to their track record as researchers, all three applicants have (jointly and individually)
held a number of preparatory meetings with their US counterparts to discuss the shape of this joint
project and its implementation. An initial kick-off meeting was held in Frankfurt in July 2014,
including Ira Katznelson (New York, Social Science Research Council, SSRC), Hanna Bäck
(Lund), Christian Breunig (Konstanz), Claudia Landwehr (Mainz), Claus Offe (Berlin), Sigrid
Rossteutscher (Frankfurt), Thomas Saalfeld (Bamberg) and Armin Schäfer (Osnabrück).
Subsequently, Landwehr, Saalfeld and Schäfer drafted the outline of a proposal, which was sent to
Katznelson for discussions on the SSRC side. Landwehr and Saalfeld discussed responses to the
outline proposal in a meeting held with Katznelson, Nancy Bermeo (Oxford), Ron Kassimir (SSRC)
and Nolan McCarty (Princeton) in a meeting in Berlin in October 2014. This discussion informed a
second iteration of the outline, which Katznelson circulated to further leading scholars on the
SSRC-sponsored team. In February 2015, Katznelson provided Saalfeld with further feedback from
the US scholars involved (including Claudine Gay [Harvard], Robert Keohane [Princeton], Nancy
Rosenblum [Harvard]) and discussed more specific plans for implementation with Saalfeld in a
meeting in Berlin. Finally, Saalfeld met Larry Bartels (Vanderbilt) and McCarty, at the Annual
Conference of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago (April 2015) and the
Conference of the European Political Science Association in Vienna (June 2015) to fine-tune some
final aspects. Resulting from these consultations, a program could be agreed between all main
players, and there is a clear and agreed timetable that all likely key participants are committed to.
1.1
List of Project-related Publications
Claudia Landwehr (2009b). ‘Discourse and Coordination: Modes of Interaction and their Roles in
Political Decision-making.’ Journal of Political Philosophy 18(1): 101-122.
Claudia Landwehr/Katharina Holzinger (2009). ‘Institutional Determinants of Deliberative
Interaction.’ European Political Science Review 2(3): 373-400.
Claudia Landwehr/Katharina Böhm (2011). ‘Delegation and Institutional Design in Health Care
Rationing.’ Governance 24(4): 665-688.
Claudia Landwehr (2015). ‚Democratic Meta-Deliberation: Towards Reflective Institutional Design.’
Political Studies 63(1): 38–54.
Thomas Saalfeld (2000). ‘Members of parliament and governments in Western Europe: Agency
relations and problems of oversight.’ European Journal of Political Research 37(3): 353-376.
Thomas Saalfeld (2005). ‘Deliberate Delegation or Abdication? Government Backbenchers,
Ministers and European Union Legislation.’ Journal of Legislative Studies 11(3-4): 343-371.
Thomas Saalfeld/Daniel Bischof (2013). ‘Minority-Ethnic MPs and the Substantive Representation
of Minority Interests in the House of Commons, 2005–2011.’ Parliamentary Affairs 66(2): 305328.
Armin Schäfer (2012). ‘Consequences of Social Inequality for Democracy in Western Europe.’
Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft 6: 23-45.
Armin Schäfer (2012). ‘Beeinflusst die sinkende Wahlbeteiligung das Wahlergebnis? Eine Analyse
kleinräumiger Wahldaten in deutschen Großstädten.’ Politische Vierteljahresschrift 53: 240-264.
Armin Schäfer (2015). Der Verlust politischer Gleichheit. Warum der Rückgang der
Wahlbeteiligung der Demokratie schadet, Frankfurt a.M.: Campus.
2
2.1
Objectives and Work Programme
Anticipated Total Duration of the Project
36 months
2.2
Objectives
As outlined above, the extension of the Anxieties of Democracy program to a transatlantic
collaborative project bringing together German/European and US scholars. It aims to add value to
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existing scholarship by making (and testing) connections between areas of research that have
typically developed in isolation from one another (see above). We seek to bring together experts in
political science who will connect results of their specialist work to broader methodological,
empirical and normative questions of democracy; disseminate the results of these cross-cutting
discussions; generate a public discussion about crucial problems of democracy in the
contemporary world; and create a platform where the best work of the scholars involved is
disseminated.
The program will be framed by conceptualizing representative democracies as chains of
democratic delegation and accountability – mediated by parties, elections and legislatures (e.g.,
Strøm et al. 2003). While this framework is relatively established, the program proposed here will
bring in more systematically the policy environment within which such delegation takes place. In
some areas, this very policy environment has changed dramatically in recent decades. Examples
include the economic crises briefly referred to above as well as long-term risks and challenges
arising from environmental, demographic and other changes (see Figure 2, which should be
understood as an organizing framework for heuristic purposes). The impact of economic crises
e.g., Bartels/Bermeo 2013), growing social inequality (e.g., Huber/Stephens 2014), immigration
(e.g., Givens/Maxwell 2012) and a range of new risks (e.g., Hood/Rothstein/Baldwin 2001) on
democracies have, of course, already received a great deal of scholarly attention. Some members
of the group have a long-standing track record in connecting such developments with institutional
and behavioral changes in the political arena (e.g., Bartels 2008; McCarty/Poole/Rosenthal 2006
for the US; Schäfer 2010 for Germany). Nevertheless, the cooperation promises considerable
scope for cross-fertilization. Moreover, German/European scholars are likely to benefit from
sustained discussions with US colleagues in methodological terms in a number of areas that are
exceptionally developed in leading US political science institutions. At the same time the
German/European side would bring a rich, well-grounded and institutionally varied set of data to
the table.
Figure 2: Heuristic Summary of Key Variables
2.3 Work Program Including Proposed Working Methods
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In substantive terms, Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the main intellectual questions and links that are to
be pursued. In operational terms, the project will differ from traditional research projects. We will
have a joint steering group and five pairs of ‘matched’ working groups on both sides of the Atlantic.
These paired working groups will match the five thematic areas outlined below. Led by the steering
group, the paired working groups will coordinate their activities throughout the funding period of
three years. During this time participants will have opportunities to meet regularly in person
(workshops and small conferences), but much preparatory work between such workshop and
conference meetings will consist of a systematic

assessments of the state of the art in the respective field;

identification of lacunae; and

development of forward-looking and innovative ideas that will be presented, discussed and
improved at conferences.
It is intended to convert a number of these ideas into proposals for funded research or other
specific joint plans for primary research by the end of the funding period. But the workshops and
conferences will not only serve to prepare the ground for new research. They will also exploit the
collective experience, data and other resources of the main participants to produce at least one
edited book presenting the results of the endeavors. This is to include a book with a major
university press (“Anxieties of Democracy”) and a series of special issues of peer-reviewed
academic journals with sufficient impact to make participation even more attractive for junior
scholars. SSRC is already collaborating with JSTOR to create a “digital workbench” for scholarly
work on democracy, which will support our work and be connected to the project. The project aims
to develop tools that will facilitate deeper searches in existing literature on the JSTOR system
dating back to the start of the twentieth century, as well as potentially incorporate key documents
and data. In addition, it is intended that the groups’ work will regularly be used to publish “think
pieces”, e.g., authored by the senior scholars involved in the project. This will be important to
ensure our agenda will be open to public scrutiny from the beginning, enhance the project’s
visibility and involve a wider “attentive public”. The project will also establish a web forum where,
for example, the penultimate version of final drafts will be placed, inviting all scholars working on
democracy to provide comments and feedback. This would open up an important participatory
element, which will be advertised widely in the respective national political science communities.
Not least, the conferences should also be open to some reflective and influential national
journalists on both sides, and the results of the entire process of deliberation and discussion
should be reflected in a lively online presence.
There should also be funding for a small number of graduate students from both sides of the
Atlantic (2 each year) to be awarded the status of “democracy fellows” and receive travel grants to
participate fully in all activities. These fellows should be excellent in methodological terms but
should simultaneously be sufficiently sensitive to the normative issues that drive the project.
a.
Thematic area 1: Participation and representation
The first set of puzzles and challenging research questions members of the group will deal with is
represented by the upper part of Figure 2. Two arrows emanate from the box on social, economic
and political change (our ‘policy environment’): The arrow to the South West on the top left
captures the link between such changes and the willingness and capacity of citizens actively to
engage with the process of representative government – and the extent to which they consider that
process to be open, effective, fair and responsive. There is very little doubt that virtually all
advanced post-industrial societies have witnessed a steady longer-term decline of institutionalized
– electoral – political participation. Given the centrality of the voter-party-elite nexus for
representative democracies, it is not surprising that this has led to some gloomy interpretations.
Peter Mair (2006: 48), for example, echoed Manin’s (1997) notion of ‘audience democracy’ and
argued that citizens ‘turn from being participants into spectators, while the elites gain more space
in which to pursue their own shared interests.’ While the mere observation of these trends is not
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controversial, and the normative concerns expressed by Mair are shared by many, there is a lively
debate about deliberative ‘remedies’ (see below, Thematic Area 2), which members of the group
will take up and seek to clarify.
What are the drivers of this ‘decoupling’ observed by Mair and others? Firstly, there are a number
of very powerful studies building on the notion of cognitive mobilization, value change and an
increasingly critical citizenry. From Inglehart’s (1977) work on postmaterialism in the 1970s to the
studies of more and more ‘critical citizens’ in the late 1990s and early 2000s (Norris 1999, 2011),
one of the most striking puzzles identified by researchers concerns one remarkable discrepancy:
on the one hand several cohorts of citizens of consolidated liberal democracies born after the
Second World War have grown more and more educated, better informed about public affairs,
better equipped with information, more politically sophisticated and more interested in political
matters than previous cohorts. At the same time, precisely these increasingly resourceful citizens
were found by some authors to be less and less engaged in institutionalized forms of political
participation such as voting (see the body of scholarship sparked off by the studies of Barnes et al.
1979) or joining political parties (e.g., Mair 2006); they have been more critical of elected leaders;
more generally, they have shown a considerable amount of disaffection with representative
government and its outcomes (Dalton 2004: 1). Authors in this tradition argue that the growing gap
between education and institutionalized participation has been particularly noticeable amongst
citizens that are more educated and ‘postmaterialist’ than the average. ‘Cognitive mobilization’
(Dalton 2014: 21-25) produces more critical citizens who expect more of politicians than their more
deferential fellow citizens. From this perspective, it is the rise in democratic aspirations that makes
contemporary democracies look deficient (Norris 2011: 127; Putnam/Pharr/Dalton 2000).
Secondly, an alternative explanation that needs further probing also refers to the changing socioeconomic structure of advanced democracies, but starts from very different premises. In the past
decade, social research in the United States in particular (if not exclusively) has brought the hard
facts of social inequality and exclusion more strongly back to center stage. Recent studies show
that income inequality translates into unequal participation as the (urban) poor (rather than the
educated and affluent) turn away from conventional politics and fail to vote (e.g., Solt 2008, 2010;
Schäfer 2013). In countries with a more unequal income distribution there is a larger gap between
rich and poor in electoral participation (Anderson/Beramendi 2008) and in political interest (Solt
2008; Weßels 2015). Not least labor market outsiders – those in non-standard employment who
are more likely to become unemployed –, turn out at markedly lower rates than labor market
insiders (Häusermann/Schwander 2012). In addition, coordinated and liberal market economies
produce different patterns of education and income inequality in voting (Busemeyer/Goerres 2014).
Even in a country with relatively high average turnout rates such as Germany, those with plenty
resources participate at much higher rates than those with few resources. For example, electoral
turnout rates are correlated strongly with indicators of social deprivation at the aggregate level of
counties or urban districts (Soss/Jacobs 2009; Faas 2012; Schäfer and Roßteutscher 2015) and
with individual-level measures such as income and education (Schäfer 2015: chapter 5). While
electoral participation has declined for all groups, it has fallen most dramatically among the least
advantaged groups. Low turnout almost always means unequal electoral participation across
socio-demographic groups (Tingsten 1975: 232; Kohler 2006). Everything else being equal, higher
turnout leads to a more generous welfare state (Hicks/Swank 1992), more redistribution
(Hill/Leighley 1992; Mahler 2008) and less income inequality (Mahler 2010).
The arrow to the South East in Figure 2 deals with the link between social, political and economic
change on the one hand and variations in the representation of different social and political groups
on the other. Despite almost two centuries of growing inclusiveness of political representation in
socio-economic terms, many advanced liberal democracies are still facing differences in the
‘descriptive’ representation (Pitkin 1967) of identifiable groups of the population that do not seem to
result primarily from choices made by members of these groups themselves (e.g., Linden/Thaa
2009; Ruedin 2013; Taylor Robinson 2010, 2014). For example, there are still considerable
variations in the representation of women in the national, regional and local assemblies across
consolidated democracies. Furthermore, there is a burgeoning debate about the
underrepresentation of the working class (Carnes 2012; Carnes/Lupu 2015; Heath 2015). Recent
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studies more generally demonstrate that the poor are poorly represented (Rigby/Wright 2013;
Giger/Rosset/Bernauer 2012). When their preferences differ from those of the rich, politics almost
exclusively sides with the latter (Bartels 2008; Gilens 2012). However, while there is a lively debate
about the degree of unequal representation in the United States (Soroka/Wlezien 2008; Gilens
2009), very few studies employ similarly sophisticated designs in Europe.
Finally, continued large-scale immigration to advanced post-industrial democracies since the
1960s has led to a growing, often segregated class of residents who, in some countries, still face
considerable barriers to full political inclusion, including variations in rules on naturalization. Not
only are immigrants themselves faced with such formal or informal barriers, but so are often their
descendants for several generations (Alba/Nee 2005; Esser 2008; Portes/Rumbaut 2014). Europe
provides a particularly interesting patchwork of very different institutions, practices and barriers that
invites rigorous comparative study on the one hand but also presents significant obstacles
concerning the availability and comparability of data on the other. Unquestionably, the European
Union (EU) treaties have made it easier for the nationals of member states to acquire the
citizenship of another member state. This does not extend to third-country nationals, however.
There are still significant differences in the extent to which European nation states facilitate the
acquisition of full citizenship rights even to very longstanding residents (Bauböck et al. 2006). Thus
Europe in itself provides a fascinating laboratory for comparative study. The combination with data
and approaches from the US promises a particularly strong scope for progress.
b.
Thematic area 2: institutional capabilities and reform
A second thematic area revolves around the capacity and effectiveness of democratic institutions.
What are the conditions for, triggers of, and effects of, institutional reform? Participants will be able
to draw on a long tradition of scholarship in empirical political science (e.g., Esping-Andersen
1990; Hall/Soskice 2001; Lijphart 2012; Tsebelis 2002). Given the serious policy challenges
alluded to above it is not surprising that most advanced liberal democracies have witnessed a
string of constitutional and other political reforms in past decades with national governments losing
powers ‘downwards’ to agencies and regions and ‘upwards’ to international bodies and
organizations. As a result, governing has become more complex (e.g., Benz 2001; Pierre/Peters
2000). Discussions in this thematic area will thus revolve around three central issues: (a) the ability
of governments to overcome coordination problems arising from the incentives associated with
electoral competition and cycles; (b) the delegation of decision-making powers to unelected expert
bodies and the associated problems of democratic accountability and legitimacy; and (c)
institutional reforms designed to address problems of citizen disengagement. This third point will
be sub-divided into two aspects: (i) reforms to the ‘mechanics of government’ and (ii) institutional
reforms enhancing legitimacy and decisional quality by strengthening the discursive quality of
democratic decision-making.
The first area of concern is how states can be enabled to respond to critical developments without
failing due to internal vetoes. This problem may arise when governments as ‘agents’ are
accountable to multiple ‘principals’ whose preferences are misaligned. Examples include federal
and other multi-level systems. In the United States, there is a long-standing academic literature
about ‘gridlock’ (e.g., Binder 2004). Germany has experienced a similar political debate on
‘Reformstau’ which political scientists have contributed to (e.g., Busemeyer 2009). The discussions
about veto players in German and European politics and ‘veto bargaining’ in the context of US
politics (e.g., Cameron/McCarty 2004) can be employed more systematically to understand why
institutional reforms of the political system have, at best, been minor or piecemeal in some cases,
whereas they were quite comprehensive in others. Examples for extremely limited reforms despite
widespread realization of its problems include the attempted reform of Germany’s interlocking
federalism (e.g., Scharpf 2009). The United Kingdom’s story of devolution after 1998 is an example
of an unsystematic piecemeal reform (Mitchell/Mitchell 2009). New Zealand’s constitutional reforms
of the early 1990s, by contrast, were radical (e.g., Kaiser 2002). Understanding the dynamics of
institutional reform is a major objective of the joint project proposed here.
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A second set of questions is related. Where elected governments have faced gridlock or
inefficiencies attributed to party competition and bargaining between partisan veto players with
conflicting preferences, constitutional designers have often empowered unelected bodies such as
independent central banks or courts to solve coordination problems. Such institutional devices may
be necessary for democratically elected politicians to impose short-term costs on their constituents
in order to achieve longer-term, socially beneficial goals (e.g., Jacobs 2011). Some authors have
problematized the resulting reduction in the centrality of the electoral connection of democratic
representation associated with delegation to experts and, relatedly, to a stronger emphasis on nonelectoral checks and balances (e.g., Bergman/Strøm 2011). This may reduce popular support for
such decisions. One recent example for such concerns is the discussion about the Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and its provisions for ‘investor-state dispute settlement’.
While advocates hail this as a major step towards trans-Atlantic free trade, others have described
the proposed treaty as ‘post-democracy in its purest form’ (Crouch 2014), referring to the possible
establishment of tribunals of arbitration dominated by powerful corporate interests outside the
jurisdictions of elected European politicians. Given the trans-border nature of many severe policy
challenges (e.g., international economic crises, climate change, migration), a multitude of
transnational governance structures have been devised to tackle a number of cross-border policy
problems. The European Union or the International Monetary Fund are but two further examples.
Complex decision-making and ‘governance’ in networks of national and transnational, public and
private, technocratic and democratic actors has often suffered from problems of lacking
transparency and democratic accountability (on the latter issue see, e.g., Curtin 2000), especially
in times of crisis. At the same time, the high level of popular trust in the German Federal
Constitutional Court occurs despite the fact that the court (deliberately) lacks any direct democratic
legitimacy. Thus the links between democratic accountability and legitimacy still need exploration.
The familiar problem of a tension between ‘input-oriented’ and ‘output-oriented’ legitimacy (Scharpf
1999) in policy making and policy coordination remains a challenge to political-science research
and will be a central puzzle in the second thematic area of the project.
The challenges facing governments in responding to crises as well as long-term or trans-border
problems effectively and legitimately have motivated a large number of institutional reforms across
the world. Yet such reforms rarely follow some exogenously defined functional optimum. They are
frequently influenced by key actors’ strategic considerations (Diermeier/Krehbiel 2003). This leads
to a third set of questions around the precise nature of institutional reforms. One particular focus of
the planned collaboration will be theories and practices of deliberative democracy, which have
become influential in academia and elite discussions on the future of democracy. Aiming to bring
hitherto unheard voices and arguments to bear on decisions and to make citizens authors of the
laws they are to obey, a number of participatory institutional designs has been suggested and
implemented, including ‘mini-publics’ (Grönlund et al. 2014), participatory budgeting processes (de
Sousa Santos 1998), public hearings (Fleck 1994) and arbitration processes (Geis 2008). These
ideas are and innovations are motivated by the belief that the legislative process as currently
practiced may be necessary to avoid legislative bottlenecks but for certain types of decisions it may
no longer be sufficient to generate sufficient levels of legitimacy for decisions made in parliaments.
Other suggestions to increase participation address the output side of the decision-making process
and seek to grant citizens veto powers by extending the use of of ‘facultative’ or ‘obligatory’
referenda (Jörke 2013, LeDuc 2003).
Although a substantial body of literature already exists on both deliberative innovations and direct
democracy, a number of questions will benefit from a reassessment of research approaches and
the cross-cutting approach taken in the proposed project: Do deliberative innovations in fact deliver
on the promises of deliberative democratic theory by enabling more inclusive, well-justified and
authoritative decisions? How does institutional design affect interaction in deliberative forums and
hence their success? What standards do we have for the assessment of the deliberative and
democratic quality of interactions and decisions? A further desideratum for collaborative research
consists in the comparison of different forms of participatory innovation, including both deliberative
and direct democratic ones, with a particular focus on their respective potential to engage
disadvantaged and politically disenchanted groups. A rigorous assessment of these innovations
should, moreover, not only consider the benefits arising from reforms, but also potential costs for
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democratic values and an inclusive society (see, for example, Hainmueller/Hangartner 2013).
Finally, we should scrutinize the motives behind democratic innovations, asking who potential
beneficiaries are and what effects they will have on existing social and economic inequalities.
c.
Thematic area 3: Democratic institutions in the context of difficult policy challenges
The institutional challenges sketched out above are to be examined partly from the perspective of
traditional normative and positive institutional analysis. In addition, we propose to select a number
of crucial policy challenges that highlight some of the difficult structural and incentive-based
problems representative democracies are facing – and evaluate institutional reforms in response to
these concrete challenges. The policy areas identified are (a) fiscal policy, redistribution and
responses to the great recession (particularly 2007/8 to 2010/11); (b) climate; and (c) immigration
and demography.
The area of fiscal policy, taxation and responses to the banking and sovereign debt crises that
swept the world in the late 2000s and early 2010s, provides a particularly important lens that allows
researchers investigate important challenges to representative democracy in the twenty-first
century. One particular interest is the impact of policy responses on the politics of distribution. The
crises often referred to as the ‘great recession’ – affecting some of the most globally
interconnected economic actors – required democratic states to mobilize enormous resources and
coordinate their use internationally (Woll 2014). International coordination (e.g., in the European
Union) constitutes a contentious issue in the scholarship on public policy. In addition, it raises
serious questions about issues associated with thematic area 1 of this proposal: government
effectiveness (e.g., cabinet stability or decisional gridlock), the proper legislative scrutiny and
authorization of substantial financial commitments, questions of secrecy surrounding international
negotiations, the resulting lack of democratic accountability and dilemmas of responsiveness to
popular preferences (Scharpf 2013). The crisis dramatically increased social inequality in some
member states of the Euro area, and fueled discussions about the national interest, fiscal transfers
and national stereotypes in other states (Bartels/Bermeo 2013). The strong performance of the
French Front National and the intermittent rise of Eurosceptic parties such as the British UK
Independence Party or the German Alternative for Germany are cases in point. These examples
show the opportunities arising from the project: The substantive discussions in thematic area 3 will
benefit from input from thematic area 1 and vice versa. In other words, the project will encourage
scholars to develop joint research perspectives in areas that tend to be separated by subdisciplinary specialisms.
The second broad policy area we are proposing – climate – presents similarly serious problems as
the first. Like the discussions on the fiscal crisis, policy initiatives around climate change will
additionally benefit from the collaboration of scholars normally working on political participation
(thematic area 1) and the mechanics of governing (thematic area 2). Climate policy is a typical
example of a policy that presents democratically elected politicians – who compete for national
votes in the next election – with incentive problems as solutions have to transcend national
boundaries and the time horizons of elected politicians. Policies to tackle climate change require
immediate costs and defer uncertain benefits to the future. They involve international negotiations
where ‘defection’ is the dominant strategy (in the language of game theory) and where democratic
accountability is problematic. Generating democratic support and legitimacy for costly changes to
national infrastructures in the energy sector, for example, requires suitable institutions that balance
the need for scientific advice and democratic participation and generate legitimate decisions for the
long-term in an environment characterized by extreme uncertainty about the relationship between
policies and policy outcomes. While this is generally a core concern for thematic area 2, scholars
involved in thematic area 1 will provide further insights into issues of popular acceptance including
the dynamics of political protest and of protest voting.
The third broad policy area chosen – immigration and demography – also highlights the growing
limits of nation states to act unilaterally and effectively. Refugees challenge the status of borders of
states (including the boundaries of welfare systems). The defense of these borders and associated
humanitarian issues raise very serious normative problems for democratic states. In addition, the
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integration of recent immigrants poses questions about citizenship, representation, integration and
diversity. Importantly from the perspective of thematic area 1, it lays bare a disconnect between
influential parts of the political and economic elites on the one hand and a substantial share of
voters on the other. While the longer-term need for immigration, and the economic benefits arising
from it, are considered by elites in a number of countries (for example elites often discuss the need
for immigration in the face of low indigenous fertility rates), the perceived costs and risks of
immigration are much more salient in popular discourses and protest movements in the latter. At
the institutional level (thematic area 2), electoral systems, the system of candidate selection in
political parties and institutionally embedded sources of ethnic discrimination even in advanced
democracies have come under scrutiny for their openness or bias (Ruedin 2013). Scholars
contributing to thematic area 1 will be able to shed light on the electoral reverberations of
immigration and integration. Contributors to thematic area 2 will be involved in discussing the
empirical and normative scope for reform of political and welfare institutions.
d.
Organization of the work
By pooling the expertise of leading scholars based in the US and Germany (or, more widely,
Europe), by identifying some fundamental challenges for democratic representation in the twentyfist century, by examining carefully how these challenges ‘play out’ in different institutional settings
and policy environments, we would like to help to shape the field of political science enquiry in
some key areas. The project seeks to do so initially by making connections between research subfields in an increasing diversified and specialized discipline; and it seeks to make connections
between researchers across several countries, embracing the positive and normative dimensions
of political theory which often operate in separate ‘worlds’. The project will add value by addressing
crucial, practical issues of policy and institutional reform and by developing platforms for wider
access to the deliberations. We believe that progress in all three areas outlined above could be
advanced by enabling experts on both sides of the Atlantic to map out the relevant field, identify
lacunae and stimulate collaborative and innovative research. Unlike traditional conferences,
contributors would have time to discuss and refine their analyses and plans on a continuous basis.
A DFG-funded grant under the joint SSRC-DFG initiative would also provide essential seed-corn
funding for joint projects arising from this.
We propose a total of eight workshops or conferences. Six of them are to deal with the research
areas sketched in a general fashion above. One kick-off conference will provide input for the six
thematic workshops, and one final workshop will be designed to pull together, compare and
evaluate important results from the six thematic workshops in context and prepare a suitable
publication. Each workshop will be led by at least two members of the SSRC-DFG steering group.
The process is to be driven by a steering group of several scholars with the following
responsibilities:
1. Overall Coordination: Ira Katznelson (SSRC), Thomas Saalfeld (DFG group)
2. Thematic area 1 (participation): Nancy Bermeo, Claudine Gay, Claudia Landwehr, Armin
Schäfer
3. Thematic area 2 (institutional capacity and reform): Hanna Bäck, Nolan McCarty, Thomas
Saalfeld
4. Thematic Area 3 (public policy working groups):
a. The Politics of Distribution: Stephen Ansolabehere, Christian Breunig
b. Climate: Thomas Bernauer, Robert Keohane, Nancy Rosenblum
c. Immigration and demography: Rafaela Dancygier, Marc Helbling, Laura Morales,
Gwen Sasse
We propose to proceed in three stages:
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a) Initially, there will be a kick-off workshop attended by the core group (above) and 12-15
further scholars. The purpose is to get some accomplished scholars to introduce ‘think
pieces’ on some of the issues identified above. The steering group would direct this
workshop to identify some overarching questions for the individual thematic areas. This
workshop should take place in Germany between January and March 2016.
b) In a second phase, there would be two workshops in each thematic area. In the kick-off
conference around 6 participants would present papers reviewing the state of research in
the respective field and defining the most important areas for further work from their
perspective. These workshops would be attended by a larger number of researchers, who
will then take up some of the ideas formulated in the first workshop and define forwardlooking research agendas, which are then to be presented and discussed in the second
workshop. These discussions should feed into joint activities such as the definition of a joint
research agenda and first plans for joint funded research projects.
c) At the final stage, we will hold a conference for dissemination at a suitably visible location.
e.
Schedule
We would propose to hold these workshops within 24 months of the start of the project. The project
should be completed within 36 months with the submission of a book manuscript.
Month
1
2-3
5
8-12
13
Activity
Planning meeting of Ira Katznelson
and Thomas Saalfeld
Meeting DFG/SSRC steering group
14
17-20
24
24
Kick-off conference
Thematic area 1-3, 3 workshops
Planning meeting of Katznelson and
Thomas Saalfeld
Meeting DFG/SSRC steering group
Thematic area 1-3 – 3 workshops
Concluding conference
Editorial meeting 1
30
Editorial meeting 2
30-36
36
Editorial work
Submission of manuscript
2.4
Deliverables
Draft a proposal for workshops, conferences and meetings;
preliminary discussions with possible publishers
Finalize a detailed plan for kick-off conference and the first
three workshops
Think pieces to be presented and published online
Papers to be presented and published online
Review of the first year, development of an adjusted
proposal for Year 2
Finalize detailed plan
Papers to be presented and published online
Papers to be presented and published online
Draft introduction; plan of a book; feedback to authors of
papers selected for publication
Further feedback to authors, final decisions about
publication, draft conclusions; planning of final editorial work
Final manuscript
Published book
Data Handling
Discussion papers and workshop reports will be made available on a project website, final papers
will be published in an edited volume.
3
Bibliography Concerning the State of the Art, the Research Objectives, and the Work
Program
Alba, R./Nee, V., eds. (2005). Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and
Contemporary Immigration. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.
Anderson, C .J./Beramendi, P. (2008). ‘Income, Inequality, and Electoral Participation.’ In: P.
Beramendi/C. J. Anderson (eds.): Democracy, Inequality, and Representation. A
Comparative Perspective. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 278-311.
Barnes, S. H., et al. (1979). Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies.
Beverly Hills: Sage.