This element shows, based on a review of the literature, how digital technology has affected liberal democracies with a focus on three key aspects of democratic politics: political communication, political participation, and policy-making. The impact of digital technology permeates the entire political process, affecting the flow of information among citizen and political actors, the connection between the mass public and political elites, and the development of policy responses to societal problems. This element discusses how digital technology has shaped these different domains, identifies areas of research consensus as well as unresolved questions, and argues that a key perspective involves issue definition, that is, how the nature of the problems raised by digital technology is subject to political contestation.
Delegation is an ubiquitous social phenomenon linked to the growing differentiation of modern societies. Delegation is one of several different modes of organisation that exist to make collective acti
Political scientists Maggetti (U. of Zurich and U. of Lausanne), Gilardi (U. of Zurich), and Radaelli (U. of Exeter) describe the choices and trade-offs in designing an empirically oriented research p
This innovative research design text will help you make informed choices when carrying out your research project. Covering both qualitative and quantitative approaches, and with examples drawn from a
