In the USA and world wide, democracy is beneath risk. Anti-democratic attitudes have grow to be extra prevalent, partisan polarization is rising, misinformation is omnipresent, and politicians and residents generally query the integrity of elections.
With this backdrop, the MIT Division of Political Science is launching an effort to ascertain a Strengthening Democracy Initiative. On this Q&A, division head David Singer, the Raphael Dorman-Helen Starbuck Professor of Political Science, discusses the objectives and scope of the initiative.
Q: What’s the objective of the Strengthening Democracy Initiative?
A: Nicely-functioning democracies require accountable representatives, correct and freely accessible info, equitable citizen voice and participation, free and honest elections, and an abiding respect for democratic establishments. It’s unsettling for the political science neighborhood to see increasingly more proof of democratic backsliding in Europe, Latin America, and even right here within the U.S. Whereas we can’t single-handedly cease the erosion of democratic norms and practices, we are able to focus our energies on understanding and explaining the basis causes of the issue, and devising interventions to take care of the wholesome functioning of democracies.
MIT political science has a historical past of producing vital analysis on many sides of the democratic course of, together with voting conduct, election administration, info and misinformation, public opinion and political responsiveness, and lobbying. The objectives of the Strengthening Democracy Initiative are to put these varied analysis applications beneath one umbrella, to foster synergies amongst our varied analysis tasks and between political science and different disciplines, and to mark MIT because the nation’s main middle for rigorous, evidence-based evaluation of democratic resiliency.
Q: What’s the initiative’s analysis focus?
A: The initiative is constructed upon three analysis pillars. One pillar is election science and administration. Democracy can’t perform with out well-run elections and, simply as vital, common belief in these elections. Even inside the U.S., not to mention different nations, there may be super variation within the electoral course of: whether or not and the way folks register to vote, whether or not they vote in individual or by mail, how polling locations are run, how votes are counted and validated, and the way the outcomes are communicated to residents.
The MIT Election Knowledge and Science Lab is already the nation’s main middle for the gathering and evaluation of election-related information and dissemination of electoral greatest practices, and it’s properly positioned to extend the dimensions and scope of its actions.
The second pillar is public opinion, a wealthy space of examine that features experimental research of public responses to misinformation and analyses of presidency responsiveness to mass attitudes. Our college make use of survey and experimental strategies to review a spread of substantive areas, together with taxation and well being coverage, state and native politics, and techniques for countering political rumors within the U.S. and overseas. College analysis applications type the premise for this pillar, together with longstanding collaborations such because the Political Experiments Analysis Lab, an annual omnibus survey wherein college students and college can take part, and frequent conferences and seminars.
The third pillar is political participation, which incorporates the influence of the legal justice system and different adverse interactions with the state on voting, the creation of citizen assemblies, and the lobbying conduct of companies on Congressional laws. A few of this analysis depends on machine studying and AI to cull and parse an infinite quantity of information, giving researchers visibility into phenomena that had been beforehand tough to research. A associated analysis space on political deliberation brings collectively pc science, AI, and the social sciences to research the dynamics of political discourse in on-line boards and the attainable interventions that may attenuate political polarization and foster consensus.
The initiative’s versatile design will permit for brand new pillars to be added over time, together with worldwide and homeland safety, strengthening democracies in several areas of the world, and tackling new challenges to democratic processes that we can’t see but.
Q: Why is MIT well-suited to host this new initiative?
A: Many individuals view MIT as a STEM-focused, extremely technical place. And certainly it’s, however there’s a super quantity of collaboration throughout and inside faculties at MIT — for instance, between political science and the Schwarzman School of Computing and the Sloan Faculty of Administration, and between the social science fields and the colleges of science and engineering. The Strengthening Democracy Initiative will profit from these collaborations and create new bridges between political science and different fields. It’s additionally vital to notice that it is a nonpartisan analysis endeavor. The MIT political science division has a fame for rigorous, data-driven approaches to the examine of politics, and its place inside the MIT ecosystem will assist us to take care of a fame as an “trustworthy dealer,” and to disseminate path-breaking, evidence-based analysis and interventions to assist democracies grow to be extra resilient.
Q: Will the brand new initiative have an academic mission?
A: In fact! The division has an extended historical past of bringing in scores of undergraduate researchers by way of MIT’s Undergraduate Analysis Alternatives Program. The initiative will likely be structured to offer these college students with alternatives to review varied sides of the democratic course of, and for college to have a prepared pool of proficient college students to help with their tasks. My hope is to offer college students with the assets and alternatives to check their very own theories by designing and implementing surveys within the U.S. and overseas, and use insights and instruments from pc science, utilized statistics, and different disciplines to review political phenomena. Because the initiative grows, I anticipate extra alternatives for college kids to collaborate with state and native officers on enhancements to election administration, and to review new puzzles associated to wholesome democracies.
Postdoctoral researchers may even play a distinguished function by advancing analysis throughout the initiative’s pillars, supervising undergraduate researchers, and dealing with a few of the administrative facets of the work.
Q: This seems like a long-term endeavor. Do you anticipate this initiative to be everlasting?
A: Sure. We have already got the items in place to create a number one middle for the examine of wholesome democracies (and easy methods to make them more healthy). However we have to construct capability, together with assets for a pool of researchers to shift from one mission to a different, which can allow synergies between tasks and foster new ones. A everlasting initiative may even present the infrastructure for college and college students to reply swiftly to present occasions and new analysis findings — for instance, by launching a nationwide survey experiment, or accumulating new information on a facet of the electoral course of, or testing the influence of a brand new AI know-how on political perceptions. As I like to inform our supporters, there are new challenges to wholesome democracies that weren’t on our radar 10 years in the past, and little doubt there will likely be others 10 years from now that we now have not imagined. We have to be ready to do the rigorous evaluation on no matter challenges come our approach. And MIT Political Science is one of the best place on the planet to undertake this formidable agenda in the long run.
