The Interactions between citizens and politicians (INCIPOL)
INCIPOL is a Methusalem-funded research program led by a consortium of political and communication scientists, studying diverse facets of the interactions between citizens and their elected representatives.
Representative democracy hinges on the interaction between citizens and their elected representatives. Without reciprocal interaction and communication, broadly conceived, democracy is unthinkable. However, nowadays, the communicative relationship between the public and politics seems to be broken. Widespread political dissatisfaction and populism, polarization, and disinformation are all indicators of a representative democracy in distress. When it comes to understanding representative democracy, there are many things about the interaction between citizens and politicians we do not know.
For instance, is the communication by citizens towards politicians biased, resulting in politicians’ misperception of what citizens care about (and hence leading to actual misrepresentation in the next step)? Do politicians send different signals depending on whether they think citizens share their opinion or not? How do politicians cope with hate messages they get from citizens and is hate an important factor in politicians’ decision to throw in the towel? Which specific elements of political communication by politicians today are responsible for inciting anger and fear, rather than hope or enthusiasm among citizens?
The mission of INCIPOL is to run a research program that examines four components of the reciprocal interactions between citizens and politicians:
- How citizens send public opinion signals towards politicians
- How politicians read public opinion and are affected by it in their actions
- How politicians communicate with citizens
- How citizens interpret the communication by politicians and are affected by it
Methodologically, the consortium draws on a mixed methods design. We do open-ended interviews with politicians in eight countries, parallel surveys with politicians and citizens, longitudinal content-analyses of political text from both politicians and citizens, and extensive experimentation including lab experiments grasping citizens’ physiological reactions to political messages. The program will contribute substantively to our understanding of the interactions between politicians and citizens, thereby illuminating the mechanics of representative democracy and the pressure it is under. In sum, our ambition is to help answer the core question of how representative democracy works.