GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Proposals should relate changing voting attitudes at the individual level to wider political and cultural discourses, where feelings and emotions can compete and overrule facts and reasons, and to the emergence of new social movements and parties. They should analyse key drivers of such changes, taking into consideration socio-economic variables (including transformation in the world of work), as well as cultural variables linked to identity, generational differences, gender, ethnic diversity, security, migration and the material forms of discourse such as education and media. The political cleavages that shape current political phenomena and trace their connection to historical legacies as well as their foreseeable negative and positive long-term impacts on democratic systems should be analysed.

Proposals should examine the barriers and opportunities to re-invigorating and enhancing representative democratic systems. Strategies to address the demands and needs of citizens expressed in other, non-electoral forms of political participation, with a view to active engagement and inclusion, including the use of digital tools for citizen engagement should be provided. Research should develop a comprehensive and transparent toolbox of possible policy interventions including but not limited to recommendations, toolkits and methodologies for enhancing trust in political institutions, boosting transparency, representativeness and inclusiveness of representative systems. In all cases, comparative approaches at EU level, taking also into consideration the changing demographic composition of populations, should be developed.