Research Maurits Meijers

Abstract

In today's age of 'misinformation', politicians are frequently accused of bending the truth to their advantage. As citizens rely on accurate and accessible information to meaningfully engage with politics, political lying violates the contract between citizens and their elected representatives. Political lying accusations therefore have the potential to erode citizens' trust in and commitment to representative democracy as a system of governance. While political lying accusations may be as old as politics itself, we know little about when accusations of political lying take root, how accusations of political deception are perceived by citizens, and what their effects are on citizens' democratic citizenship. To shed light on the issue of political lying accusations and itsimplicationsfor democratic citizenship this project: (1) describes the historical trends in political lying accusations; (2) identifies the conditions under which politicians accused one another of deception, and characterizes the attributes of both the accused and accusers of political lying; (3) studies citizens' perceptions of accusations of political deception by exploring the individual and contextual factors that influence these perceptions; (4) investigates the consequences for democratic citizenship by examining how exposure to lying accusations affects citizens' trust in democracy, their support for liberal democracy as a system of governance, as well as their active engagement with politics. The empirical analyses focus on 20 European countries and rely on an integrated multi-method approach including automated text analysis, qualitative interviews, observational and experimental surveys, and longitudinal survey evidence. By addressing these critical knowledge gaps, this project will provide invaluable insights into the dynamics of political deception and its consequences for democratic citizenship.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Meijers Maurits

Research team(s)

• Politics & Public Governance

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This research program examines key challenges to representative democracy by studying political deception, citizen perceptions of the impartiality of public institutions, democratic defence against autocratization, the reputational consequences of party behaviour, and party-level populism. It integrates several connected research lines conducted within the research professorship at the University of Antwerp. A first component focuses on political deception and disinformation. The project Politics as Monkey Business investigates how and when citizens perceive political lying and how such perceptions shape attitudes toward democracy and support for alternative governance. It combines a citizen science diary approach with survey experiments in the Netherlands. The ERC Starting Grant project Deception in Democracy (DEMO-LIES) examines political lying accusations as a potential threat to democratic citizenship. It studies their historical evolution, the conditions under which politicians accuse one another of deception, how citizens perceive such accusations, and their consequences for trust in and support for liberal democracy across 20 European countries. A second component analyses bias perceptions of public service institutions. Using survey data in multiple European countries and the United States, this research examines perceptions of left- or right-wing bias among public servants and how these are shaped by citizens' ideological positions and socio-demographic characteristics. It addresses cross-national and institutional variation, the politicization of institutions, and implications for institutional trust, legitimacy, and beliefs about who benefits from public service provision. A third component studies defending democracy in the context of democratic recession. It develops an actor-based theoretical framework centred on the interaction between autocratizing incumbents, institutional elites, and citizens. Ongoing work uses survey experiments and case studies to analyse when and under which conditions political and societal actors mobilize against democratic erosion, focusing on the credibility, neutrality, and embedded knowledge of democratic defenders. A fourth component addresses the reputational costs of party compromise and policy change. Through survey experiments and comparative observational research in multiparty systems, this line examines how citizens evaluate parties' willingness to compromise during coalition negotiations and their policy repositioning. It studies how political attitudes, ideological positions, partisan alignment, and perceptions of opportunism shape evaluations of party behaviour. Finally, the Populism and Political Parties Expert Survey (POPPA) provides extensive comparative data on populism, party ideology, organisation, and democratic commitment across Europe. Two waves (2018 and 2023) covering 28–31 countries and more than 250–312 parties supply publicly available data supporting analyses of populism, parties' willingness to compromise, and climate policy positioning. Together, these research components advance understanding of the dynamics of deception, bias perceptions, democratic defence, party behaviour, and populism, and their implications for the functioning and legitimacy of representative democracy.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Meijers Maurits
• Fellow: Meijers Maurits

Research team(s)

• Politics & Public Governance

Project type(s)

• Research Project