In the US and around the globe, democracy is underneath menace. Anti-democratic attitudes have grow to be extra prevalent, partisan polarization is rising, misinformation is omnipresent, and politicians and residents typically 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 function of the Strengthening Democracy Initiative?
A: Effectively-functioning democracies require accountable representatives, correct and freely obtainable info, equitable citizen voice and participation, free and truthful elections, and an abiding respect for democratic establishments. It’s unsettling for the political science group to see increasingly proof of democratic backsliding in Europe, Latin America, and even right here within the U.S. Whereas we can not 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 keep up the wholesome functioning of democracies.
MIT political science has a historical past of producing essential analysis on many aspects 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 underneath one umbrella, to foster synergies amongst our varied analysis initiatives 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 not perform with out well-run elections and, simply as essential, widespread belief in these elections. Even inside the U.S., not to mention different international locations, 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 Information and Science Lab is already the nation’s main heart for the gathering and evaluation of election-related knowledge and dissemination of electoral finest practices, and it’s nicely positioned to extend the size 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 check 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. School analysis applications kind the idea for this pillar, together with longstanding collaborations such because the Political Experiments Analysis Lab, an annual omnibus survey during which college students and school can take part, and frequent conferences and seminars.
The third pillar is political participation, which incorporates the affect of the legal justice system and different unfavorable interactions with the state on voting, the creation of citizen assemblies, and the lobbying conduct of corporations on Congressional laws. A few of this analysis depends on machine studying and AI to cull and parse an infinite quantity of knowledge, giving researchers visibility into phenomena that had been beforehand tough to investigate. A associated analysis space on political deliberation brings collectively pc science, AI, and the social sciences to investigate 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 spanking 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 not 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 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 essential to notice that this can be 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 keep up 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 a protracted historical past of bringing in scores of undergraduate researchers through MIT’s Undergraduate Analysis Alternatives Program. The initiative will probably be structured to offer these college students with alternatives to check varied aspects of the democratic course of, and for college to have a prepared pool of gifted college students to help with their initiatives. 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 check political phenomena. Because the initiative grows, I anticipate extra alternatives for college students to collaborate with state and native officers on enhancements to election administration, and to check new puzzles associated to wholesome democracies.
Postdoctoral researchers will even play a distinguished function by advancing analysis throughout the initiative’s pillars, supervising undergraduate researchers, and dealing with among the administrative features 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 heart for the examine of wholesome democracies (and how one can 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 is able to allow synergies between initiatives and foster new ones. A everlasting initiative will 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 amassing new knowledge on a facet of the electoral course of, or testing the affect 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 doubt there will probably 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 approach. And MIT Political Science is the most effective place on the planet to undertake this bold agenda in the long run.
