Publications

Viktoria Cologna, Jana Freundt, Niels G Mede, Lauren Howe, Eri Bertsou, Jamie Gloor, Naomi Oreskes, Reto Knutti and Mike S Schäfer “How scientists’ collective climate advocacy affects public trust in scientists and voting behavior.” Environmental Research Letters. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ad984c

Abstract

Scientists increasingly engage in policy advocacy, especially on climate change. Does this advocacy undermine—or bolster—public trust in scientists and support for scientists’ recommendations? We leveraged a unique opportunity to answer this question in a real-world setting: the 2023 referendum for the Swiss climate protection law (CPL), which was supported by a public statement of 252 renowned scientists across disciplines. We conducted a pre-registered, two-wave, quasi-field experiment (n_pre-vote = 1,622, n_post-vote = 891) to test how scientists’ collective support for the law affected public trust in scientists and voting behavior. We found that scientists’ advocacy was associated with greater public trust, particularly among left-leaning individuals; only a minority viewed these scientists as not objective. However, perceptions of scientists’ role in society and policymaking and voting behavior remained largely unaffected when participants were reminded of the CPL advocacy. Although we studied a restrained form of policy advocacy in a somewhat unique setting, our study challenges the widespread assumption that policy advocacy undermines public trust in scientists.

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Bertsou, Eri, Daniele Caramani and Jelle Koedam (2024). “The ideological profile of the technocratic citizen.” European Journal of Political Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12698. Article available here.

Abstract

A certain type of citizen holds technocratic views. They favour pragmatic problem solving through scientific and technical expertise, and reject party politics for being harmful to the common good. Yet, empirical evidence on the ideological profile of these citizens is fragmented and inconclusive. Using an original survey in Western Europe, Australia and the United States, we test predictions about the left−right alignment of citizens with technocratic attitudes on the economic and cultural dimensions of politics. We argue that technocracy is not antithetical to ideology and that citizens holding technocratic attitudes are not immune to ideological positions. Findings show that technocratic citizens are more economically left-wing than mainstream voters, contrary to common associations of technocracy with neoliberal economic principles. However, they are more centrist than populists. This highlights that, in addition to a representational challenge, technocracy mounts an ideological challenge to party-based representative democracy. In times of cumulative crises, which put democracies under stress with demands for competence and effectiveness, these findings offer insights about the appeal of alternative forms of representation.

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Claassen, Christopher, Kathrin Ackermann, Eri Bertsou et al. (2024)  “Conceptualizing and Measuring Support for Democracy: A New  Approach.” Comparative Political Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140241259458

Abstract

Much of what we know about public support for democracy is based on survey questions about “democracy,” a term that varies in meaning across countries and likely prompts uncritically supportive responses. This paper proposes a new approach to measuring support for democracy. We develop a battery of 17 survey questions that cover all eight components of liberal democracy as defined by the V-Dem project. We then ask respondents from 19 national samples to evaluate these rights and institutions. We find considerable heterogeneity across countries in how our items cohere, especially in less developed contexts. Yet, those items that are more weakly connected with general support for liberal democracy tend to reveal the influence of political events and actors, arguably indicating weaknesses in political cultures. We further identify a concise subset of seven items that provide a reliable and valid measure of support for liberal democracy across our different samples.

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Cologna, Viktoria et al. (forthcoming). Trust In Scientists And Their Role In  Society Across 67 Countries. A ManyLabs Study. Nature Human Behaviour. Preprint available here.

Abstract

Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a pre-registered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and find that in most countries, most people trust scientists and agree that scientists should engage more in society and policymaking. We find variations between and within countries, which we explain with individual- and country-level variables, including political orientation. While there is no widespread lack of trust in scientists, we cannot discount the concern that lack of trust in scientists by even a small minority may affect considerations of scientific evidence in policymaking. These findings have implications for scientists and policymakers seeking to maintain and increase trust in scientists.

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Mede, Niels et al. (forthcoming). Perceptions of Science, Science Communication, and Climate Change Attitudes in 67 Countries. The TISP Dataset. Scientific Data. Preprint available here.

Abstract

Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment may challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science-society nexus across different cultural contexts, we undertook a cross-sectional survey resulting in a dataset of 71,922 participants in 68 countries. The data were collected between November 2022 and August 2023 as part of the global Many Labs study “Trust in Science and Science-Related Populism” (TISP). The questionnaire contained comprehensive measures for individuals’ trust in scientists, science-related populist attitudes, perceptions of the role of science in society, science media use and communication behaviour, attitudes to climate change and support for environmental policies, personality traits, political and religious views and demographic characteristics. Here, we describe the dataset, survey materials and psychometric properties of key variables. We encourage researchers to use this unique dataset for global comparative analyses on public perceptions of science and its role in society and policy-making.

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Bertsou, Eri and Daniele Caramani (2022). “People Haven’t Had Enough of  Experts: Technocratic Attitudes among European Citizens.” American  Journal of Political Science. Paper available here or at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ajps.12554

Abstract

Political representation theory postulates that technocracy and populism mount a twofold challenge to party democracy, while also standing at odds with each other in the vision of representation they advocate. Can these relationships be observed empirically at the level of citizen preferences, and what does this mean for alternative forms of representation? The article investigates technocratic attitudes among citizens following three dimensions— expertise, elitism, and anti-politics—and, using latent class analysis, identifies citizen groups that follow a technocratic, populist, and party-democratic profile in nine European democracies. Results show that technocratic attitudes are pervasive and can be meaningfully distinguished from populist attitudes, though important overlaps remain. We investigate differences in demographics and political attitudes among citizen profiles that are relevant to political behavior and conclude by highlighting the role that citizens’ increasing demands for expertise play in driving preferences for alternative types of governance

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Bertsou, Eri (2021). “Bring in the Experts? Citizen Preferences for Independent Experts in Political Decision-Making Processes.” European Journal of Political Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12448. Paper available here: Accepted version

Abstract

Do citizens welcome the involvement of independent experts in politics? Theoretical and empirical work so far provides conflicting answers to this question. On the one hand, citizens may demand expert involvement in political decision-making processes in order to ensure efficient and effective governance solutions. On the other hand, citizens can be distrustful of experts and reject the unaccountable and non-transparent nature of expert-based governance. This note investigates citizen preferences for the involvement of experts in different stages of political processes and across ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ political issues. Results show that, in the absence of explicit output information, respondents prefer independent experts over national elected representatives in the policy design and implementation stages, across political issues. For the crucial stage of decision making, respondents show no difference in their evaluation of processes that delegate decisions to experts or to elected representatives, with the exception of environmental policy, where expert decision making is preferred. These findings are relevant for ongoing discussions on how to incorporate independent experts in political decision making in a way that citizens find legitimate and on how to address increased citizen dissatisfaction with the representative democratic functions performed by political parties, governments and politicians.

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Bertsou, Eri and Daniele Caramani Eds. (2020). The Technocratic Challenge to Democracy. Routledge. Table of Contents available here

The Technocratic Challenge to Democracy represents the first comprehensive study of how technocracy currently challenges representative democracy and asks how technocratic politics undermines democratic legitimacy. How strong is its challenge to democratic institutions?

The book offers a solid theory and conceptualization of technocratic politics and the technocratic challenge is analyzed empirically at all levels of the national and supra-national institutions and actors, such as cabinets, parties, the EU, independent bodies, central banks and direct democratic campaigns in a comparative and policy perspective. It takes an in-depth analysis addressing elitism, meritocracy, de-politicization, efficiency, neutrality, reliance on science and distrust toward party politics and ideologies, and their impact when pitched against democratic responsiveness, accountability, citizens’ input and pluralist competition. In the current crisis of democracy, this book assesses the effects of the technocratic critique against representative institutions, which are perceived to be unable to deal with complex and global problems. It analyzes demands for competent and responsible policy making in combination with the simultaneous populist resistance to experts. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, political theory, policy analysis, multi-level governance as well as practitioners working in bureaucracies, media, think-tanks and policy making.

• Bertsou, Eri. “Technocracy and Democracy: Friends or Foes.” Chapter available here
• Bertsou, Eri and Daniele Caramani. “Measuring Technocracy.” Chapter available here

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Bertsou, Eri (2019). “Rethinking Political Distrust.” European Political Science Review, 11(2): 213-230. doi:10.1017/S1755773919000080.

Abstract

Increasing political distrust has become a commonplace observational remark across many established democracies, and it is often used to explain current political phenomena. In contrast to most scholarship that focuses solely on the concept of trust and leaves distrust untheorized, this article makes a contribution by analysing political distrust. It argues that citizen distrust of government and political institutions poses a threat for democratic politics and clarifies the relationship between the distrust observed in established democracies and classical ‘liberal distrust’, which is considered beneficial for democracy. Further, it addresses the relationship between trust and distrust, identifying a series of functional asymmetries between the two concepts, with important implications for theoretical and empirical work in political science. The article suggests that a conceptualization of political distrust based on evaluations of incompetence, unethical conduct and incongruent interests can provide a fruitful ground for future research that aims to understand the causes, consequences, and potential remedies for political distrust.

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Bertsou, Eri (2019). “Political Distrust and its Discontents: Exploring the  Meaning, Expression and Significance of Political Distrust.” Societies, 9(4): 72. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc9040072

Abstract

Political distrust has been the norm, rather than the exception, in many established democracies in recent decades. Despite a wealth of data tracking deteriorating citizen attitudes towards their governments, representatives and political systems in general, there is still a debate regarding the meaning of distrust and its significance for the health of democracies. This article contributes to the discussion by providing qualitative evidence that map the meaning, evaluative dimensions and spill-over process of distrusting political attitudes. It finds, across the three national contexts studied, that citizens express political distrust using similar language and employing the same evaluative structure. Evidence suggests that political distrust is intertwined with the failure of representation and entails a fundamentally ethical dimension. This article concludes with a discussion regarding the implications of these findings for research on diffuse support in democratic systems. 

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Bertsou, Eri and Giulia Pastorella (2017). “Technocratic Attitudes: A Citizens’  Perspective of Expert Decision-Making.” West European Politics, 40(2): 430-58. doi:10.1080/01402382.2016.1242046. 

Abstract

Despite repeated appointments of technocratic governments in Europe and increasing interest in technocracy, there is little knowledge regarding citizens’ attitudes towards technocracy and the idea of governance by unelected experts. This article revisits normative debates and hypothesises that technocracy and democracy stand in a negative relationship in the eyes of European citizens. It tests this alongside a series of hypotheses on technocratic attitudes combining country-level institutional characteristics with individual survey data. While findings confirm that individual beliefs about the merits of democracy influence technocratic attitudes, two additional important factors are also identified: first, levels of trust in current representative political institutions also motivate technocratic preferences; second, historical legacies, in terms of past party-based authoritarian regime experience, can explain significant cross-national variation. The implications of the findings are discussed in the broader context of citizen orientations towards government, elitism and the mounting challenges facing representative democracy.

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