10th Swiss Summer School in Democracy Studies S3DS 2024

Prof. Anja Neundorf - Which role does education play in strengthening democratic attitudes among ordinary citizens? This keynote lecture draws on two recent studies exploring how education may help shape citizens’ support for democracy. First, it shows that democratic education has a lasting positive impact on citizens’ support for democracy, while education content in autocracies affects citizens’ democratic values less. Second, it addresses the role of adult civic education via an online experiment conducted in 33 countries worldwide. The results show that short videos promoting the virtues of democracy positively affect support for democracy and that effects can still be detected after two weeks. Interestingly, civic education works in a more universal way than previously assumed, across very different countries and individuals, with the results suggesting that online civic education interventions can be generally effective in promoting democratic citizenship.

Prof. Fabio Wolkenstein - Illiberal subversions of democracy are typically framed with the term ‘democratic backsliding’, which denotes a regression behind an already-achieved level of democratisation. When using the language of ‘backsliding’, one must logically presuppose that ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ stages of democratic development can robustly be identified. Problematising this presupposition, this session invites reflection on the conceptual foundations of the backsliding debate. It explores popular developmental narratives about democracy in the social sciences and addresses difficult questions such as whether it is plausible to use one set of normative standards to evaluate the quality of democracy across time and space.

Prof. Jan Rovny - This session discusses the democratic role of political parties, starting with the classical understanding of parties as conveyor belts of interest from society into politics. It questions the need for political parties, while discussing their evolution over the last decades. Ultimately, it considers the development of European party politics, the rise of ethnopopulist forces, their support, and the methods through which they erode democracy.

Prof. Natasha Wunsch - Why do citizens tolerate democratic backsliding? This session addresses the role of ordinary citizens in processes of democratic backsliding. It covers dynamics of partisan and affective polarisation, the principal trade-offs citizens engage in when weighing whether to overlook democratic transgressions by elected leaders, and discusses how citizens’ commitment to liberal democratic norms shapes their evaluations of competing candidates for political office.

Prof. Honorata Mazepus - In this session we will focus on the role of citizens’ support in democratic backsliding. A growing body of studies in political science shows that mechanisms such as coalitional psychology (e.g., “my party bias”, “winner-loser gap”) and motivated reasoning might steer us away from liberal democracy. In addition, citizens might trade-off democratic values for specific policy gains. At the same time, however, we have evidence that individuals like fair procedures and punishment of rule-violators – preferences that should make democracy desirable. In this session we will discuss recent studies (observational and experimental) to better understand individual drivers of support for democracy.