Abstract
PROTRUST's aim is to investigate the effect of the politicisation of EU competition and "antitrust" cases on citizens' trust in the European Commission competition authority as well as citizens' trust in the firms involved in these cases. Postdoctoral research fellow Elena Escalante-Block will use this one-year grant from the University of Antwerp Research Fund ('opvangmandaat') to further develop a research project on this topic. The project proposes to use an innovative combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, including a frame analysis of media coverage of antitrust cases and survey experiments based on these frames.
The project intends to address how a) antitrust cases can become subject to politicisation, and b) the different frames which may or may not help the EC and firms in terms of obtaining citizens' trust. After a very positive appraisal of a Marie Curie Sklodorowska application (MSCA) for a postdoctoral research fellowship, Elena Escalante-Block will apply again for an FWO postdoctoral fellowship as well as an EU MSCA at the ARENA Institute of the University of Oslo. With her PROTRUST research project, she intends to contribute to the literature by addressing three main gaps. First, it builds a bridge between politicisation and trust. Second, it advances knowledge on politicisation in the field of competition policy. Third, it provides a novel analysis on the impact of news frames in relation to antitrust. In the framework of this, she will also propose to rely on the support of a secondment institution, Lund University (LU) with Associate Professor Stefan Larsson. The present one-year grant from the University of Antwerp Research Fund (BOF) thus enables to apply for several research grants, improve skills in teaching and supervision as well as widen and deepen skills to conduct research through a variety of methodological approaches. Altogether, PROTRUST, if funded for several years, would fill a major scientific gap through its interdisciplinary approach, combining media analysis and survey experiments for a political analysis of legal cases, enhance future career prospects through the obtainment of new theoretical and methodological knowledge, and address an absolutely timely and pressing topic, the impact of politicization on citizens' (dis)trust in public authorities and large companies in the digital age.
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