Promotors: Kris Deschouwer (VUB), Marc Hooghe (KUL), Pascal Delwit (ULB), Stefaan Walgrave (UA), Rudy Andeweg (Universiteit Leiden, Pays-Bas), Donatella Della Porta (EUI, Italie).

Dates: 2007-2011

Researchers Cevipol: Pascal Delwit, Justine Lacroix, Paul Magnette, Jean-Michel De Waele, Olivier Costa, Emilie van Haute, Jean-Benoit Pilet, Nicolas de Decker, Giulia Sandri.

Presentation: Participation and representation are concepts that have been at the centre of political debates and of political theory for a few decades. This debate refers to (still ongoing) deep changes in the way citizens are linked to the process of political decision-making and in the procedures and principles that organize the democratic dialogue between state and society. This pressure on democracy has multiple dimensions and multiple origins: Sociological change, Value change, Institutional change, Party change, Party system change, Administrative culture change. These developments raise a large number of (also normative) questions that are extremely relevant for modern political science. The main research question for this project is how the processes of participation and representation are being affected by these social changes, and in turn, what effect participation and representation patterns have on the legitimacy of democratic government. We want to look at citizens (participation, attitudes), at political parties (organization, strategies), at other intermediary organizations (media, social movements) and at political decision-makers (role perception, links with society). This multi-facetted research will be broken down in several smaller projects or work packages. What all these packages have in common, however, is the fact that they investigate aspects of the same central research question. There will be two major common research instruments that will take on board questions from most of the work packages and that will deeply integrate the whole project: a pre- and post-electoral (population) survey (panel) for the regional elections in Belgium (2009) and an international survey of members of national and regional parliaments. Research themes:

- Changing Patterns of Citizen Participation.

- The Transformation of Political Trust.

- Media, parties and voters.

- Protest and transitory engagements.

- Party members and representation in multi-layered systems.

-Representation in (and of) multiple territories.