Over the last decade, concerns about the prospects of liberal democracy have intensified. With the rise of populist parties and candidates, democratic institutions have come to be attacked in the name of democracy itself. Apparently, different social groups and political parties mean different things when they call for more and better democracy. Our project “Conceptions of Democracy among Political Elites and Citizens” set out in 2022 to identify and understand competing normative conceptions of democracy in Germany and the United States. Arguing that any assessment of the state and resilience of democracy needs to be informed about what political actors mean by and expect from democracy, the project was based on the overarching assumption that conceptions of democracy evolve in reciprocal communicative processes between citizens and political elites. In order to trace results of these processes in citizen and elite attitudes as well as political communication, we conducted surveys among German and US citizens and legislators as well as a qualitative content analysis of party manifestos. In the second funding period, we will complement the project’s work packages with additional data and analyses: First, we will apply automated text analysis to analyze larger amounts of text and, in particular, parliamentary debates over the course of 25 years. Second, we will conduct an additional conjoint experiment to further elucidate relationships between normative conceptions of democracy and institutional design preferences. Third, we will complement our survey of federal and state legislators with a survey of elected representatives in local politics in Germany and the United States.

Häfner, Leonard (2025): Conceptions of Democracy and Styles of Representation Among Legislators in the United States and Germany, Representation, online first. DOI: 10.1080/00344893.2025.2514516.

Landwehr, Claudia; Ojeda, Christopher; Stallbaum, Lea (2025): Institutional Design Preferences Among German and US Citizens: Results from a Factorial Survey Experiment. Political Studies, online first. DOI: 10.1177/00323217241309965 .

Landwehr, Claudia; Crowder-Meyer, Melody; Häfner, Leonard; Stallbaum, Lea; Weingärtner, Paul (2024): American Legislator Survey 2023 (dataset). https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/3H1YYH , Harvard Dataverse.

Häfner, Leonard; Landwehr, Claudia; Stallbaum, Lea (2023): German Legislators’ Conceptions of Democracy and Process Preferences: Results from a New Survey. German Politics 34(2), 277-302. DOI: 10.1080/09644008.2023.2279183 . (Replication materials available on request)

Landwehr, Claudia; Häfner, Leonard; Stallbaum, Lea (2023): German Legislator Survey 2022 (dataset). https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/GUVA5P , Harvard Dataverse.

Landwehr, Claudia; Häfner, Leonard; Stallbaum, Lea; Crowder-Meyer, Melody (25.09.2023): Results report on the American State Legislator Survey

Landwehr, Claudia; Häfner, Leonard; Stallbaum, Lea (20.10.2022): Report on the results of the survey “What do members of German parliaments think about democracy?”

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• Claudia Landwehr, Leonard Häfner and Lea Stallbaum: “Demokratiekonzeptionen von Bürger*innen und politischen Eliten in Deutschland und den USA”; Lecture on December 16, 2024 at the Trier Institute for Democracy and Party Research (TIDuP) at the University of Trier

29th DVPW Congress 2024 in Göttingen

• Leonard Häfner: “People-centered or elite-centered democrats? Legislators’ process preferences in the United States and Germany” (co-authors: Melody Crowder-Meyer, Claudia Landwehr, Lea Stallbaum); presentation on 26.09.2024 in the panel “Elites in Times of Crisis (2): Origin and Representation”
• Lea Stallbaum: “Institutional Design Preferences Among German and US Citizens: Results from a Factorial Survey Experiment” (co-authors: Claudia Landwehr, Christopher Ojeda); presentation on 26.09.2024 in the panel “Attitudes towards Representative Democracy: Causes and Consequences of Different Conceptions of Democracy”
• Jonas Wenker: “A Democratic Pick and Mix: Mapping Conceptions of Democracy Among German Citizens” (co-authors: Leonard Häfner, Lea Stallbaum); lecture on 25.09.2024 in the panel “Conceptions of democracy among citizens and political elites – comparative perspectives”

2024 APSA Annual Meeting and Exhibition in Philadelphia, Panel “Conceptions of Democracy among German and American Citizens and Political Elites”

• Armin Schäfer: “Who Wants Descriptive Representation, and Why?” (co-author: Claudia Landwehr); lecture on 06.09.2024
• Leonard Häfner: “Conceptions of Democracy and Styles of Representation”; Lecture on 06.09.2024
• Melody Crowder-Meyer: “People-centered or elite-centered democrats? Legislators’ process preferences in the United States and Germany” (co-authors: Claudia Landwehr, Leonard Häfner, Lea Stallbaum); lecture on 06.09.2024
• Lea Stallbaum: “Institutional Design Preferences Among German and US Citizens: Results from a Factorial Survey Experiment” (co-authors: Claudia Landwehr, Christopher Ojeda); lecture on 06.09.2024
• Jonas Wenker: “A Democratic Pick and Mix: Mapping Conceptions of Democracy Among German Citizens” (co-authors: Leonard Häfner, Lea Stallbaum); Lecture on 06.09.2024

Workshop “Citizen Perspectives on Democracy” in Mainz

• Lea Stallbaum: “Institutional Design Preferences Among German and US citizens: Results from a Factorial Survey” (co-authors: Claudia Landwehr, Christopher Ojeda); lecture on 21.03.2024
• Melody Crowder-Meyer: “People-centered or institutional democrats? A study of German and US legislators’ understandings of democracy” (co-authors: Claudia Landwehr, Leonard Häfner, Lea Stallbaum); lecture on 21.03.2024
• Jonas Wenker: “Mapping Conceptions of Democracy among German Citizens” (co-authors: Leonard Häfner, Lea Stallbaum); lecture on 21.03.2024

• Claudia Landwehr: “Conceptions of Democracy in Germany and the United States”; Lecture on November 30, 2023 as part of the Obama Lecture of the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies in Mainz
• Claudia Landwehr and Lea Stallbaum: “Preferences over Democratic Institutional Design among German and US Citizens”; lecture on October 30, 2023 at the Mainz Colloquium on Methods and Social Structure
• Claudia Landwehr, Leonard Häfner and Lea Stallbaum: “Citizens’ Conceptions of Democracy and Process Preferences: Results from a Vignette Study”; lecture on 20.04.2023 at the MZeDf’s Democracy Colloquium

ECPR General Conference in Prague, Section “Debating Democracy in/and Europe”

• Armin Schäfer: “Who is Afraid of Descriptive Representation? Politicians and Citizens’ Concepts of Representation”; lecture on 06.09.2023
• Leonard Häfner: “Conceptions of Democracy and Styles of Representation”; Lecture on 06.09.2023

Workshop “Democratic Citizens and Political Elites” in Mainz

• Armin Schäfer: “Who Is Afraid of Descriptive Representation?”; Lecture on 09.03.2023
• Lea Stallbaum: “Conceptions of Democracy and Process Preferences in Party Manifestos: A Comparative Analysis”; Lecture on 09.03.2023
• Leonard Häfner: “German Legislators’ Conceptions of Democracy and Process Preferences: Results from a New Survey”; Lecture on 09.03.2023

• Leonard Häfner and Lea Stallbaum: Conceptions of Democracy among German state MPs; lecture on July 14, 2022 at the workshop “Procedural Consensus and Dissent” in Mainz