A research project at the University of Fribourg into citizens' democratic attitudes across Europe and how they shape their political identities and behaviour, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, and under supervision of prof. Natasha Wunsch.
Liberal democracy is under pressure worldwide. Illiberal actors are gaining support for a platform that directly challenges some central liberal democratic principles. Where such actors gain access to government, they frequently proceed to dismantle executive and erode democracy. So why do citizens often fail to resist the simultaneous rise of illiberalism and democratic backsliding by upholding liberal democratic principles at the ballot box? Building on the findings from a previous Ambizione project (2019-2024), this new SNSF-funded project (2025-2029) will investigate the relevance and heterogeneity of mass attitudes towards democracy as a fundamental factor explaining citizens’ responses to emerging threats to liberal democracy. The project team will theorize and empirically explore variation in liberal democratic commitment as a way to resolve the apparent paradox between mass support for democracy and citizens’ differential willingness to tolerate or even openly endorse political actors who challenge core principles of liberal democracy.
How can we measure the shape and heterogeneity of citizens’ liberal democratic commitment? Which types of democrats can be distinguished and what are their main characteristics? How are these types distributed across different European countries?
How does variation in citizens’ democratic commitment relate to their political identities? And to what extent do elections affect the salience of democratic attitudes for citizens’ group identification?
To what extent do varying levels of liberal democratic commitment affect citizens’ political behaviour?
We take a comparative, cross-country approach and study citizens' commitment in France, Italy, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Romania, Moldova, Estonia, Serbia, Spain, and Hungary.
Principal Investigator. Natasha Wunsch is Professor for European Studies and and PI of the SNSF-funded project "Liberal Democratic Commitment in Europe" (DEMCOM). Her research focuses on democratisation and democratic backsliding and combines survey-based approaches, discourse analysis and comparative methods including focus groups and interviews.
Postdoctoral Researcher. Dani Sandu completed his PhD at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy) and studies social and political identities. He uses experimental and quasi-experimental methods and is also a skeptical user of text-as-data approaches.
Postdoctoral Researcher. Joep van Lit completed his PhD at Radboud University (Nijmegen, the Netherlands) and investigates the resilience and defence of democracy, especially against incumbents who challenge it. He focuses on the behavioral consequences of citizens' commitment to liberal democracy, using cross-national surveys and experiments.
Doctoral Candidate. Hannah Groennou finished her Research Master in Social and Cultural Sciences at Radboud University (Nijmegen, the Netherlands).
The team works on a broad set of research questions. You can find all their publications on their personal profiles and websites. Here, you will find a selection of their research that directly taps into citizens' commitment to liberal democracy. When research is not available Open Access, feel free to contact us so we can send you a copy!
Do you want to know more about our research? Or talk to us about the impact of the project? Let us know!