Inequality and Direct Democraty in Europe

拟开展的分项目将调查直接民主程序作为一种制度化的、基于法律的平等的参与形式，是否以及如何影响社会经济、法律的和政治不平等、关系平等（Rosanvallon）和政治领域的（新）格局。 在德国汉堡学派改革公投之后，直接民主进程往往被认为是加剧了不平等。但这是真的吗？直接的民主程序是否稳定甚至加深了上述不平等的各个方面？迄今为止，现有的研究主要集中在瑞士各州或美国各州的比较，主要是一维的不平等研究，几乎没有区分不同的直接民主工具的效果。此外，对政治（重新）配置的影响几乎没有受到审查。计划中的分项目将在数量比较方法的基础上缩小这些研究差距，该分项目主要侧重于1990年至2015年期间的欧洲民主国家。与通常的（或多或少）直接民主（联邦）州的比较相反，TP 2将分析具体的直接民主程序的实际效果。它将选择那些可能对所描述的不平等方面产生影响的程序。第一个供资期的工作方案分为四个阶段：1）确定假设和制定分析框架; 2）生成数据; 3）评估对不平等的四个方面以及对政治（新）结构的影响; 4）案例研究。数据生成将尽可能基于现有的数据集和数据库。如果没有提供足够的数据，则采用不同类型的文件（非数字和在线材料、平台）和专家访谈作为数据来源。一方面，分析方法的目的是检验假设，另一方面是提炼和产生新的假设（探索性）。

The intended sub-project will investigate whether and how direct democratic procedures as an institutionalized, on legal equality based form of participation affects socio-economic, legal and political inequalities, relational equality (Rosanvallon) and (neo-)configurations of the political field. After the Hamburg school reform referendum in Germany, direct democratic processes are often considered as aggravating inequality. But is this actually true? Do direct democratic procedures stabilize or even deepen the mentioned dimensions of inequality? Hitherto existing studies focus predominantly on the comparisons of Swiss cantons or US-American states, examine inequality mainly one-dimensional and do hardly differentiate the effects of different direct democratic instruments. Also, the impact on political (re-)configuration is hardly scrutinized. The planned sub-project will close these research gaps based on a quantitative-comparative approach.The sub-project focuses mainly on European democracies during the period of 1990 until 2015. In contrast to the usual comparison of (more or less) direct democratic (federal) states, TP 2 will analyze the actual effects of concrete direct democratic procedures. It will select those procedures with probable effects on the described dimensions of inequality. The work program of the first funding period is divided into four phases: 1) Specification of hypotheses and development of the framework of analysis; 2) Data generation; 3) Evaluation of effects on the four dimensions of inequality as well as on political (neo-)configurations, 4) Case studies. Data generation will be based on existing datasets and databanks as far as possible. If sufficient data is not provided, different kinds of documents (non-digital and online material, platforms) and expert interviews are applied as data sources. On the one hand the analytical approach aims at testing hypotheses and on the other hand at refining and generating new hypotheses (exploratory).