Two projects participated by IBEI researchers have received funding from the European NORFACE network within the research programme ‘Democratic governance in a turbulent age’. A total of fourteen transnational research projects were selected for funding for a period of 2 years (2020-2022).

Jacint Jordana, director of IBEI and professor of political science at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), and Aina Gallego, Associate Professor at IBEI, participate as a principal investigators in two different projects:

Reconnecting citizens to the administrative state? (ReConnect)

Project Leader: Professor M.C.E. Lodge, London School of Economics and Political Science (UK)
Principal Investigator: Dr N. Sitter, Norwegian Business School (Norway)
Principal Investigator: Dr C. Koop, University of London (UK)
Principal Investigator: Professor J. Jordana, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (Spain)
Principal Investigator: Dr C.H.J.M Braun, Leiden University (the Netherlands)

This study covers how changes in the political environment, public sector reform, and changing citizen demands have led to calls for more responsive administrative state institutions, and explores how the administrative state has sought to become more responsive to citizens and politicians. The ReConnect project approaches ‘the administrative state’ from the dimensions of the constitutional, regulatory, enabling, consumer-protecting, and consulting administrative state.

How Technological Change Reshapes Politics: Technology, Elections, and Policies (TECHNO)

Project Leader: Dr. H. Finseraas, Institute for Social Research (Norway)
Principal Investigator: Dr A. Kuo, University of Oxford (UK)
Principal Investigator: Dr A. Gallego, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (Spain)
Principal Investigator: Professor S. Häusermann, University of Zurich (Switzerland)

TECHNO addresses political consequences of rapid technological progress and explores how technological change in the workplace contributes to ongoing deep political transformations, the adoption of policies to address change, and the political consequences of such policies. The project should also result in recommendations of politically viable and effective policies to help workers and communities adapt to a fast-changing economic landscape and increased insecurity.

With the “Democratic governance in a turbulent age”(acronym: Governance) research programme, NORFACE offers a timely investigation of the precise nature of the turbulence, but also of how European states can negotiate this turbulence and develop strategies to enhance the quality of democratic politics and governance.

The Governance programme is supported by twenty-one funding organisations from nineteen European countries. The programme also receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 822166. In total, a budget of 17.8 million Euros has been made available for the fourteen transnational research projects.