What citizens think they should and can do in democracies (CONSTRUCT)

The project “What Citizens Think They Should and Can Do in Democracies” (CONSTRUCT), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), aims to investigate how citizens understand their role in democracies, especially during societally challenging times.

Western democracies recently experienced a series of societal challenges––including wars, a pandemic, and climate change––and many citizens are dissatisfied with how politicians address these challenges, become polarized or turn to radical right parties, or withdraw from politics altogether. Amid these challenges, the CONSTRUCT-project reconsiders citizens’ role in democracies: what do citizens themselves think they should and can do in democracies, especially when the issues they care about might be too big to be addressed by institutions alone? Some theories in political science raise considerable demands on what citizens should do (e.g., inform themselves, deliberate, get active), but empirical research often shows that citizens cannot meet these demands (e.g., because they are too busy, disinterested, or biased.).

The CONSTRUCT project aims to develop a novel concept––tentatively called Constructive Citizenship Behavior––that directly captures the tension between ideals and reality by asking citizens directly what they think they should do and what they can actually do.