ProDem Stakeholder Conference at the European Parliament (Brussels, 30 Nov. 2022)

1. December 2022Allgemein#democracy, #europe, #europeanparliament, #inequality, #movement parties, #protest, #womenDan Mercea

The ProDem team travelled to Brussels to for its first stakeholder meeting at the European Parliament and the launch of our research report ‘Strengthening Democracy in Europe: How movement parties, social movements and active citizens are reshaping Europe’ . The meeting with European politcians, representatives of civil society and community organisations was the inaugural event for the ProDem stakeholder network, a platform we are building to enable the open exchange of ideas for how to ensure the project’s results are carried over into practice and future research. The plurality of voices at the meeting allowed for a robust discussion on topics central to ProDem, including a critical conversation about key project findings and policy recommendations, all geared towards the shared goal to improve democratic quality in Europe, the European Union and its member states.

The cross-group event, which was also streamed online, was funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung and hosted at the European Parliament by Nicu Ștefănuță (MEP, Renew Europe) with the support of EP Vice-President Katarina Barley (S&D), Dacian Cioloș (MEP, Renew Europe), Daniel Freund (MEP, Greens/EFA), and the input of our partner NGOs including Alliance4Europe (Brussels), Edgeryders (Brussels), The Democratic Society (Brussels), Helsinki Committee Hungary (HU), BiPart (IT), declic (RO), Femei in Politica (RO), Unlock Democracy (UK).

Special thanks to Volkswagen Stiftung for the financial support, and to all attendees for contributing towards such a generative event. We will continue to build on these ideas, expand and strengthen links, and meet again in the next year to create actionable moves forward together.

New ProDem Publication

29. September 2022Allgemeinmatthiashoffman

ProDem researchers Matthias Hoffmann, Felipe G. Santos, Christina Neumayer, and Dan Mercea have published the article “Lifting the Veil on the Use of Big Data News Repositories: A Documentation and Critical Discussion of A Protest Event Analysis” in Communication Methods and Measures. In it, they engage with big data repositories and critically discuss the usage of big data, its implications and invisibilities for social science research in general, and protest research in particular.

The article is published open access and can be viewed here: “https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19312458.2022.2128099

New paper on the impact of ultra-conservative movements in the European Parliament

20. September 2022Allgemeinfelipe_santos

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Felipe G. Santos has recently published a paper titled ‘Populist strategy in the European parliament: How the anti-gender movement sabotaged deliberation about sexual health and reproductive rights’ in the European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology. The paper is open access and you can read it through this link.

Postdoc Felipe G. Santos speaks on the Spanish media

27. May 2022Allgemeinfelipe_santos

This week, our postdoctoral researcher Felipe G. Santos spoke to two Spanish media outlets about the conservative civil society and political party networks that are gathering in Budapest at the Summit of the Political Network for Values, as well as Hungary’s leadership in these circles. Click on the links for the Google translated versions of the articles: ElDiario & InfoLibre.

A commentary on the Hungarian elections for “Adevărul” based on ProDem Survey results

24. May 2022Allgemeindana_trif

Dana S. Trif, Felipe Gonzales Santos and Dan Mercea were interviewed by Romanian newspaper “Adevărul” on the results of the Hungarian elections.

Cum l-a „ajutat” războiul din Ucraina pe Viktor Orban să câştige alegerile: „«Pacea» cu Rusia lui Putin, preferată de maghiari”

https://adevarul.ro/locale/cluj-napoca/cum-l-a-ajutat-razboiul-ucraina-viktor-orban-castige-alegerile-pacea-rusia-putin-preferata-maghiari-1_6280f9c95163ec42716e4415/index.html

ProDem at the joint sessions of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR)

20. April 2022Allgemeinfelipe_santos

This week, Prodem members will present some of the early project findings at the joint session on movement parties of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). ProDem has had a central role in the organisation of the joint session, as one of the project’s postdoctoral researchers, Fred Paxton, is one of the workshop directors.

During this event, we will share some of the early findings of the project. Fred Paxton will present data from the project’s mass media data collection and will talk about how the mass media reacted to the movementization of far-right parties. Moreover, Felipe G. Santos will give the first insights of our analysis of what drives support for movement parties using our survey data and cutting edge experimental designs.

If you are in Edinburgh and want to know more about movement parties, join them!

Felipe G. Santos and Dan Mercea analyse the outcome of the Hungarian elections using survey data from ProDem

5. April 2022Allgemeinelections, Hungary, survey datafelipe_santos

In their latest piece at The Conversation ‘Hungary: election triumph for Viktor Orbán is a warning to progressive parties seeking a marriage of convenience with the far right‘, Felipe G. Santos and Dan Mercea use recently collected survey data to analyse the outcome of the Hungarian elections and the prospects of a united opposition in Hungary.

https://theconversation.com/hungary-election-triumph-for-viktor-orban-is-a-warning-to-progressive-parties-seeking-a-marriage-of-convenience-with-the-far-right-180196

Protests, social mobilization, and civic activism in Romania

15. March 2022Allgemeindana_trif

Dana S. Trif, Diana Mărgărit and Toma Burean are co-organizing a Panel on Romanian protests, movement parties and social movements at the 2022 Society for Romanian Studies Conference, which takes place in Timișoara between 15 – 17 June 2022. The panel will discuss the relationship between large scale protests and democracy in Romania. Do protests strengthen or weaken democracy? Do movement parties play a role in making the Romanian government more responsive to new political demands? How have social media such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram shaped large scale protest events? For answers to these questions and many more, join our discussion at the SRS Conference in June!

“Judge me by my size, do you?”– Movement Parties’ Visual Communication on Digital Platforms

11. February 2022Allgemeinhannahct1

Workpackage four at the University of Copenhagen has reviewed hundreds of images on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to analyze the visual communication strategies of Movement Parties. We ask if differences in country, platform, or a party’s electoral trajectory reflect in the curated visual narrative they present via their social media accounts. Beginning with the Danish party The Alternative, we employ a mixed-method approach that compares image types and policy issues in visual material but also allows for a qualitative discussion of political contexts and visual frames. Want to know more? We will present some insights at this year’s Media and Publics Conference in Roskilde (28th & 29th April). Spoiler alert: Lot’s of Star Wars: https://twitter.com/alternativet_/status/94088274003098828