LSE: The state of democracy after a year of elections
Organizer: LSE
Presenters: Victor Agboga, Mukulika Banerjee, Sara Hobolt, Peter Trubowitz, and Neil Lee
Presenters: Victor Agboga, Mukulika Banerjee, Sara Hobolt, Peter Trubowitz, and Neil Lee
Date: December 11, 2024
Location: LSE & Online
Location: LSE & Online
Victor Agboga (@AgbogaVictor) is an LSE Fellow in the Department of Government. His current research delves into political behaviour and party politics in Africa around key issues such as climate change and gender.
Mukulika Banerjee (@MukulikaB) is Professor in Social Anthropology at LSE and was inaugural director of the LSE South Asia Centre. Her books include Cultivating Democracy: politics and citizenship in agrarian India, Why India Votes?, The Pathan Unarmed and The Sari (with Daniel Miller); and the series Exploring the Political in South Asia. She created the BBC Radio 4 documentary Sacred Election: Lessons from the biggest democracy in the world on the 2009 Indian National Elections.
Sara Hobolt (@sarahobolt) is the Sutherland Chair in European Institutions and Professor in the Department of Government at LSE. Previously, she has held posts at the University of Oxford and the University of Michigan. She is the Chair of the European Election Studies (EES), an EU-wide project studying voters, parties, candidates and the media in European Parliamentary elections.
Peter Trubowitz (@ptrubowitz) is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Phelan United States Centre at LSE and Associate Fellow at Chatham House.
Neil Lee (@ndrlee) is Professor of Economic Geography at the Department of Geography and Environment, and leads the Cities, Jobs and Economic Change research programme at the International Inequalities Institute, at LSE. Neil's research considers cities, economic change and the social dimensions of innovation.
This panel of LSE researchers explore some of the issues that have come to the fore in this bumper year for international politics, along with the key outcomes and implications for the world in 2025.
Understanding global politics is the LSE research initiative designed to help make sense of what's happening in politics today.
Mukulika Banerjee (@MukulikaB) is Professor in Social Anthropology at LSE and was inaugural director of the LSE South Asia Centre. Her books include Cultivating Democracy: politics and citizenship in agrarian India, Why India Votes?, The Pathan Unarmed and The Sari (with Daniel Miller); and the series Exploring the Political in South Asia. She created the BBC Radio 4 documentary Sacred Election: Lessons from the biggest democracy in the world on the 2009 Indian National Elections.
Sara Hobolt (@sarahobolt) is the Sutherland Chair in European Institutions and Professor in the Department of Government at LSE. Previously, she has held posts at the University of Oxford and the University of Michigan. She is the Chair of the European Election Studies (EES), an EU-wide project studying voters, parties, candidates and the media in European Parliamentary elections.
Peter Trubowitz (@ptrubowitz) is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Phelan United States Centre at LSE and Associate Fellow at Chatham House.
Neil Lee (@ndrlee) is Professor of Economic Geography at the Department of Geography and Environment, and leads the Cities, Jobs and Economic Change research programme at the International Inequalities Institute, at LSE. Neil's research considers cities, economic change and the social dimensions of innovation.
This panel of LSE researchers explore some of the issues that have come to the fore in this bumper year for international politics, along with the key outcomes and implications for the world in 2025.
Understanding global politics is the LSE research initiative designed to help make sense of what's happening in politics today.
Sofie Hennau: A scandal effect: local scandals and political trust
Date: December 10, 2024
Location: Online
Location: Online
Sofie Hennau is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration at the School of Social Sciences at Hasselt University in Belgium. Her research primarily focuses on democratic innovation, local governance, and the dynamics of citizen participation. She is actively involved in examining issues related to political engagement at the municipal level, with a keen interest in how administrative and democratic reforms influence public trust and local governance. Hennau collaborates on various projects within the Research for Digitalization, Diversity, and Democracy (R4D) group at Hasselt University. One of her recent initiatives, alongside Johan Ackaert, explores the potential impacts of reinstating compulsory voting in local elections to enhance voter turnout and representation. She also co-authored studies on the relationship between politics and administration at the municipal level in Flanders, contributing insights into the effects of institutional changes on political culture and democratic processes.
In this TRUEDEM webinar, Sofie Hennau (Universiteit Hasselt, Belgium) examines the relationship between scandals that hit political institutions and lowering political trust at the local level. This study contributes to the field by assessing the impact of local scandals on trust in local government and the mayor in the context of a federal state, Belgium. The research relies on an original dataset that includes a selection of municipalities that were hit by a scandal and of municipalities that were not in the running-up of the 2018 local elections. The findings suggest the existence of a ‘scandal effect’ on voters’ trust in local government and mayor. First, trust in local institutions appears significantly lower in municipalities that were hit by a scandal. Second, the effect of scandals at the individual level appears to be reinforced by voters’ perception of trustworthiness of local politicians: scandals more significantly affect trust in local government among voters who evaluate negatively local politicians.
In this TRUEDEM webinar, Sofie Hennau (Universiteit Hasselt, Belgium) examines the relationship between scandals that hit political institutions and lowering political trust at the local level. This study contributes to the field by assessing the impact of local scandals on trust in local government and the mayor in the context of a federal state, Belgium. The research relies on an original dataset that includes a selection of municipalities that were hit by a scandal and of municipalities that were not in the running-up of the 2018 local elections. The findings suggest the existence of a ‘scandal effect’ on voters’ trust in local government and mayor. First, trust in local institutions appears significantly lower in municipalities that were hit by a scandal. Second, the effect of scandals at the individual level appears to be reinforced by voters’ perception of trustworthiness of local politicians: scandals more significantly affect trust in local government among voters who evaluate negatively local politicians.
LSE: The Open Society as an enemy: Populism, Popper, and pessimism post-1989
Organizer: LSE
Presenter: J. McKenzie Alexander, Ilka Gleibs, Alan Manning, and Sarah Worthington
Paper: available here
Presenter: J. McKenzie Alexander, Ilka Gleibs, Alan Manning, and Sarah Worthington
Paper: available here
Date: December 02, 2024
Location: LSE & Online
Location: LSE & Online
J. McKenzie Alexander is Professor in Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE. Professor Alexander's original field of research concerned evolutionary game theory as applied to the evolution of morality and social norms, though more recently his work explores problems in decision theory, more broadly construed, including topics in formal epistemology.
Ilka Gleibs is currently Associate Professor at LSE in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. Previously, she was a Lecturer at the University of Surrey and a Post-doc at the University of Exeter in the Department of Psychology. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena (Germany) and a MSc (Dipl.-Psych.) from Free University Berlin.
Alan Manning (@alanmanning4) is Professor of Economics at LSE and Director of the Labour Markets Programme in CEP. He is a leading labour economist and an expert on low wage and female labour markets, unemployment, minimum wages, and monopsony in labour markets, on which he has recently published a book: Monopsony in Motion: imperfect competition in labour markets. He will be leading the studies on job polarisation in the Skills and Labour Market Programme.
Sarah Worthington is a professor of law. She specialises in commercial equity, personal property and corporate law. Her research is primarily focused on the controversial issues relating to personal property rights and abuse of power in commercial, not-for-profit and corporate contexts.
Expanding on Karl Popper’s thinking nearly 80 years since the original publication of his spirited philosophical defence of the Open Society, J. McKenzie Alexander’s new book, The Open Society As An Enemy, argues that a new defence is urgently needed now, in the decades since the end of the Cold War. The Open Society as an Enemy interrogates four interconnected aspects of the Open Society: cosmopolitanism, transparency, the free exchange of ideas, and communitarianism. In re-examining their consequences, Alexander calls for resistance to the forces of reaction, alongside his claim for the concept of the Open Society to be rehabilitated and advanced.
Ilka Gleibs is currently Associate Professor at LSE in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. Previously, she was a Lecturer at the University of Surrey and a Post-doc at the University of Exeter in the Department of Psychology. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena (Germany) and a MSc (Dipl.-Psych.) from Free University Berlin.
Alan Manning (@alanmanning4) is Professor of Economics at LSE and Director of the Labour Markets Programme in CEP. He is a leading labour economist and an expert on low wage and female labour markets, unemployment, minimum wages, and monopsony in labour markets, on which he has recently published a book: Monopsony in Motion: imperfect competition in labour markets. He will be leading the studies on job polarisation in the Skills and Labour Market Programme.
Sarah Worthington is a professor of law. She specialises in commercial equity, personal property and corporate law. Her research is primarily focused on the controversial issues relating to personal property rights and abuse of power in commercial, not-for-profit and corporate contexts.
Expanding on Karl Popper’s thinking nearly 80 years since the original publication of his spirited philosophical defence of the Open Society, J. McKenzie Alexander’s new book, The Open Society As An Enemy, argues that a new defence is urgently needed now, in the decades since the end of the Cold War. The Open Society as an Enemy interrogates four interconnected aspects of the Open Society: cosmopolitanism, transparency, the free exchange of ideas, and communitarianism. In re-examining their consequences, Alexander calls for resistance to the forces of reaction, alongside his claim for the concept of the Open Society to be rehabilitated and advanced.
Marte Winsvold: What makes people trust or distrust politicians?
Date: November 29, 2024
Location: Online
Location: Online
Marte Slagsvold Winsvold is a Norwegian political scientist and a senior researcher at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo. Her academic background includes a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oslo, and her research primarily focuses on political representation, participation, and trust, especially within the context of Scandinavian governance. Winsvold has explored how trust-based management and participatory governance models influence political leadership, as well as the implications of municipal reforms on public trust in Norway.
In this TRUEDEM webinar, Marte Winsvold (Institute for Social Research, Oslo, Norway) examines the basis on which people make assessments about whether to trust or distrust political actors. Through a content analysis of 1,105 open-ended survey questions about political trust and distrust, the study finds that people tend to assess (dis)trust of politicians based on whether they see the politicians as predictable, intrinsically committed, competent and responsive. Moreover, the study finds that citizens use different judgement bases to describe trust and distrust, suggesting that the two concepts are not pure negations of each other. While predictability is the most frequently reported basis for trusting politicians, a lack of intrinsic commitment is the most frequently reported basis for distrusting politicians. This study discusses the reasons for and implications of the apparently different bases for weighing judgements on trust and distrust.
In this TRUEDEM webinar, Marte Winsvold (Institute for Social Research, Oslo, Norway) examines the basis on which people make assessments about whether to trust or distrust political actors. Through a content analysis of 1,105 open-ended survey questions about political trust and distrust, the study finds that people tend to assess (dis)trust of politicians based on whether they see the politicians as predictable, intrinsically committed, competent and responsive. Moreover, the study finds that citizens use different judgement bases to describe trust and distrust, suggesting that the two concepts are not pure negations of each other. While predictability is the most frequently reported basis for trusting politicians, a lack of intrinsic commitment is the most frequently reported basis for distrusting politicians. This study discusses the reasons for and implications of the apparently different bases for weighing judgements on trust and distrust.
Maria Uttenthal: A conceptual analysis of trust
Date: October 03, 2024
Location: Online
Location: Online
Maria Uttenthal recently obtained her PhD from the Hertie School, which was a comprehensive study of trust in democratic societies. Her research works towards building closer connections between quantitative research and systematic conceptual work in the social sciences. Alongside her PhD, she has taught Statistics, Mathematics, and Research Design. She holds an MSc in European Public Policy and a BSc in Economics from University College London.
In this webinar, Maria Uttenthal presents a novel conceptual analysis of trust. The analysis is interdisciplinary, as it acknowledges and combines influential conceptualizations from political science, psychology, and sociology. The author emphasizes diverging conceptual aspects as complementary and develop an argument for how they relate within different forms of trust. Concretely, Sartori’s conceptual guidelines are employed to systematically develop the concept along the ladder of abstraction. As the ladder descends, the author moves from a universal conceptual definition into the development of increasingly concrete subtypes within the realms of interpersonal and institutional trust. The resulting framework centrally exists beyond any particular school of thought, and thereby represents an important move toward multidisciplinary consensus around the meaning of this fundamentally important concept.
In this webinar, Maria Uttenthal presents a novel conceptual analysis of trust. The analysis is interdisciplinary, as it acknowledges and combines influential conceptualizations from political science, psychology, and sociology. The author emphasizes diverging conceptual aspects as complementary and develop an argument for how they relate within different forms of trust. Concretely, Sartori’s conceptual guidelines are employed to systematically develop the concept along the ladder of abstraction. As the ladder descends, the author moves from a universal conceptual definition into the development of increasingly concrete subtypes within the realms of interpersonal and institutional trust. The resulting framework centrally exists beyond any particular school of thought, and thereby represents an important move toward multidisciplinary consensus around the meaning of this fundamentally important concept.