Workshops

Trust, Democracy and Voter Turnout in Europe: First Results of the TRUEDEM Project 

Session 1: Paper Presentations Panel

Trust, Democracy and Voter Turnout in Europe: First Results of the Horizon TRUEDEM Project 

10:00-13:00 on March 11, 2024 - Aula conferenze, Centro linguistico di Ateneo, Edificio D, Campus di Fisciano, Università di Salerno

Language: English & Italian with translation. Watch LIVE at TRUEDEM Italy Facebook Page

Moderator: Domenico Maddaloni, University of Salerno, Italy

Discussant: Andrea Teti, University of Salerno, Italy

Speakers:

• Social Structure and Voter Turnout in the 2019 European Parliamentary Elections - by Christian Haerpfer, Project Director, Institute for Comparative Survey Research, Austria.

• Trust in European Union and Turnout in European Parliament Elections - by Kseniya Kizilova, Institute for Comparative Survey Research, Austria.

• Trust and Voter Turnout in Europe: A Multivariate Analysis - by Domenico Maddaloni, Angela Delli Paoli, Domenico Fruncillo, University of Salerno, Italy.

• Voter Turnout in National Parliamentary Elections and Features of Electoral Processes in Europe - by Iryna Kuzyna, Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine.

• The evolution of voter turnout in Greece - by Sokratis Koniordos, University of Peloponnese, Greece. 

Tavola rotonda su Quanto conta Bruxelles? La fiducia verso l'Europa e le prossime elezioni per il Parlamento europeo

Roundtable discussion on How much does Brussels matter? Trust in Europe and the upcoming European Parliament elections 

15:00-18:00 on March 11, 2024 - Aula Gabriele De Rosa, Edificio D, Campus di Fisciano, Università di Salerno 

Language: Italian

Opening:

Virgilio D’Antonio, Direttore del Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e della Comunicazione, UNISA-IT

Gennaro Iorio, Direttore del Dipartimento di Studi Politici e Sociali, UNISA-IT

Moderator:

Domenico Fruncillo, UNISA-IT, moderator

Speakers: 

• Pina Picierno, deputata al Parlamento Europeo per l’Italia

• Giuseppe Iuliano, sindacalista, già membro del Comitato economico e sociale dell’Unione Europea

• Andrea Manzi, giornalista

• Nuccio Iovene, già senatore della Repubblica, consigliere nazionale ARCI, presidente Fondazione Trame

• Mariano Di Palma, Associazione Libera

• Gianfranco Macrì, giurista, docente di Lobbying e democrazia

• Jessica Maglio, studentessa universitaria

Seminario su Le tendenze dell’affluenza elettorale in Europa: il caso italiano in prospettiva comparata

Workshop on Trends in voter turnout in Europe: the Italian case in a comparative perspective

10:00-13:00 on March 12, 2024 - Aula Vittorio Foa, Edificio D, Campus di Fisciano, Università di Salerno

Language: Italian

Moderator:

Felice Addeo, University of Salerno, Italy

Opening:

• L’affluenza elettorale in Italia dagli anni ’90 agli anni ’20 in prospettiva comparata (Voter turnout trends in Italy in a comparative perspective, 1990s-2020s) - by Domenico Fruncillo (UNISA-IT)

Round table discussion:

• Vittorio Mete, Università di Firenze

• Maria Mirabelli, Università della Calabria

• Rossana Sampugnaro, Università di Catania

• Dario Tuorto, Università di Bologna

• Cristiano Vezzoni, Università Statale di Milano

TRUEDEM Slovakia invites you to on-line research seminar on political trust, democracy and social media. The discussion will be led by TRUEDEM-Slovakia team members Aneta Világi, Branislav Dolný and Pavol Baboš. JOIN VIA TEAMS

The discussion will elaborate on existing theories and state of art on political trust, trustworthiness, democracy and the role played by social media. Performance theories suggest that attitudes formation of political trust reflect rational calculations in decision-making processes about trustworthy relationships. Connected to decision making processes, some authors stress the importance of „input“ side of liberal democracy in nourishing public confidence. Social media recently have become an important part of online news distribution and consumption, crucial tool for sharing political information and serves as easily accessible platforms for political dialogue (interactions with agents, agencies and other users). From this perspective, social media offer amply opportunities for studying new channels for transfer of citizen’s demands into the policymaking and also for analyzing modern tools for political participation. 

Political trust has long been regarded as an important element of regime support and a factor of regime stability. It is widely associated with a number of positive outcomes in representative democracies. Trust drives citizens’ interest and engagement in politics, increases voting turnout and makes law-abiding behaviour more common. Thus, trust is frequently equated to diffuse regime support and linked to the effective functioning and stability of the political system. Saying that, political mistrust presents the reversal phaenomenon, discouraging various societal groups from active political participation, giving rise to the anti-systemic solutions, and thus negatively influencing the stability of democratic regimes.

One of the key elements influencing political (mis)trust comprise the new forms of political polarization. In the last two decades we can observe visible rise of impulses negatively influencing the political trust; this trend is often labelled as polycrisis. Nevertheless, many indicators and signs of growing mistrust might be reflected already in 1960s-1980s, as for example the growth of new social movements and the related phaenomenon of Partaienverdrossenheit and party dealignment manifest. The continual erosion of traditional “Rokkanian” cleavages, destabilisation of post-WW II party systems, dramatic decline of party membership, the revolution in mass communication related with the social media, as well as the onset of media parties, business-firm parties, and entrepreneurial parties present challenge for both the political practice as well as the expert reflection.

The aim of our workshop is to address the substantial and even fundamental changes regarding the socio-political and socioeconomic cleavages in European societies that have implications for political trust, including such trends as: erosion of old and emergence of new political cleavages; shift towards the axiological cleavage/s and/or cultural backlash; radicalization of political attitudes and increased polarization; strengthening of ´bad civil society´; erosion of old identities and party alignments; emergence of new social movements and political parties; decline in party membership, individualization of citizens attitudes. The workshop and individual papers will contribute to identifying and reflecting on the most important emerging cleavages and polarizing trends across the European societies related to the general trends of (de)globalization and (counter)cosmopolitism (new and/or transformed socio-economic divisions, intergeneration conflicts, gender, new forms of nativism and nationalism etc.), as well as their influence on the state and trends of political trust across the European societies.

The goal of the workshop is to systematize and deepen our understanding of the intersection of political polarization and trust. Specifically, our workshop aims to stress and reflect two issues:

1) the polarization–trust nexus, i.e. how the interconnection between the polarization and trust might be reflected in partial cases and how it might be generalised in new or transformed theories and concepts. Also the papers discussing and presenting different methodological issues such as indicators and measure that might be used for the research of trust and polarization are welcomed.

2) Legacy of (mis)trust). In Eastern and Central Europe, the legacy of (mis)trust presents one of important long-term trends in the societies. Such phaenomenon was related with the creation of nationally oriented civil societies within the Habsburg Empire, as well as with the existence of different types of opposition against the Communist regimes. In both, as well as other cases (mis)trust presented the creative impulse for political participation and representative democracy. We assume that similar development – and legacy – might be found also within the hybrid regimes and soft authoritarian regimes in the region.

In addition to the two above-mentioned “flagship” themes, we invite proposals discussing other topics that address the interplay of political polarization and political trust. We welcome both papers discussing single-country case studies and papers employing comparative cross-country perspective. Researchers and scholars at any stage of academic career, from various domains of Social Sciences are encouraged to apply.

Join online via Zoom (Meeting ID: 871 5073 3683   Passcode: 084644)

9:00-9:30    Registration of Participants

9:30-9:45       Opening

LADISLAV CABADA, Vice-Rector, Metropolitan University Prague

CHRISTIAN HAERPFER, Institute for Comparative Research Survey “Eurasia Barometer” Vienna; main investigator of the TRUEDEM research project

9:45-10:15      Can Winners be Sore Losers? (online presentation)

FLORENT FRASQUE and STÉPHANIE ABRIAL, Grenoble Alpes University

10:15-10:45    “You know, this conference has no legitimacy”: Eurosceptic contestation of the CoFoE

JAN KOTÝNEK KROTKÝ, University of Wroclaw

10:45-11:15    A Quantitative review of the literature of trust, 1980-2023    

CLAUDIU TUFIS, University of Bucharest

11:15-11.35 Coffee break

11.35-12:05    Patterns of mistrust: Human rights in Czech culture wars 

ZORA HESOVÁ, Charles University in Prague

12.05-12:35    Commenting on politics. Anti-Ukrainism in the Czech Republic: the case of Facebook page Plzeňáci in the city of Pilsen

PŘEMYSL ROSŮLEK, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen

12.35-13:05    Identitites, Polarisation and Trust in Post-Rokkanian World

LADISLAV CABADA, Metropolitan University Prague

13.05-13:30     Final Discussion