In the USA and all over the world, democracy is below menace. Anti-democratic attitudes have develop into 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 determine 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 goal of the Strengthening Democracy Initiative?
A: Nicely-functioning democracies require accountable representatives, correct and freely obtainable 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 foundation 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 necessary analysis on many sides of the democratic course of, together with voting habits, 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 packages below 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 heart 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 necessary, well-liked belief in these elections. Even inside the U.S., not to mention different international locations, there’s great 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 Information and Science Lab is already the nation’s main heart for the gathering and evaluation of election-related information and dissemination of electoral finest 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 school make use of survey and experimental strategies to review a variety of substantive areas, together with taxation and well being coverage, state and native politics, and methods for countering political rumors within the U.S. and overseas. College analysis packages kind the premise for this pillar, together with longstanding collaborations such because the Political Experiments Analysis Lab, an annual omnibus survey by which college students and school can take part, and frequent conferences and seminars.
The third pillar is political participation, which incorporates the influence of the prison justice system and different detrimental interactions with the state on voting, the creation of citizen assemblies, and the lobbying habits of corporations on Congressional laws. A few of this analysis depends on machine studying and AI to cull and parse an unlimited quantity of knowledge, giving researchers visibility into phenomena that had been beforehand troublesome to research. A associated analysis space on political deliberation brings collectively laptop science, AI, and the social sciences to research the dynamics of political discourse in on-line boards and the doable interventions that may attenuate political polarization and foster consensus.
The initiative’s versatile design will enable for brand new pillars to be added over time, together with worldwide and homeland safety, strengthening democracies in numerous 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 great quantity of collaboration throughout and inside colleges at MIT — for instance, between political science and the Schwarzman Faculty 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 necessary to notice that it is a nonpartisan analysis endeavor. The MIT political science division has a repute 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 repute as an “trustworthy dealer,” and to disseminate path-breaking, evidence-based analysis and interventions to assist democracies develop into extra resilient.
Q: Will the brand new initiative have an academic mission?
A: After all! The division has a protracted historical past of bringing in scores of undergraduate researchers through MIT’s Undergraduate Analysis Alternatives Program. The initiative might be structured to offer these college students with alternatives to review varied sides of the democratic course of, and for school to have a prepared pool of gifted college students to help with their tasks. My hope is to offer college students with the sources 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 laptop science, utilized statistics, and different disciplines to review political phenomena. Because the initiative grows, I count on extra alternatives for college students to collaborate with state and native officers on enhancements to election administration, and to review new puzzles associated to wholesome democracies.
Postdoctoral researchers will even play a distinguished position by advancing analysis throughout the initiative’s pillars, supervising undergraduate researchers, and dealing with a number of the administrative points of the work.
Q: This appears like a long-term endeavor. Do you count on this initiative to be everlasting?
A: Sure. We have already got the items in place to create a number one heart for the examine of wholesome democracies (and find out how to make them more healthy). However we have to construct capability, together with sources for a pool of researchers to shift from one venture to a different, which can allow synergies between tasks and foster new ones. A everlasting initiative will even present the infrastructure for school and college students to reply swiftly to present occasions and new analysis findings — for instance, by launching a nationwide survey experiment, or amassing new information on a side of the electoral course of, or testing the influence of a brand new AI expertise 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 question there might be others 10 years from now that we now have not imagined. We must be ready to do the rigorous evaluation on no matter challenges come our method. And MIT Political Science is the very best place on this planet to undertake this bold agenda in the long run.
