WP1 focuses on the challenges of representative democracy and the representative disconnect phenomenon by providing a state-of-the-art review of representative democracy, studying the nature of transformations, exploring democratic legitimacy, and bridging theory and practice.
WP2 involves examining long-term trends in institutional and generalized trust, citizens’ evaluative attitudes, and electoral participation. This is achieved through cross-national surveys of both he public and members of national parliaments.
WP3 seeks to understand the horizontal and vertical disconnect of parliaments in established democracies by conducting both a democratic audit and qualitative case studies to assess the representative disconnect in political parties and parliaments.
WP4 examines weakened governing responsiveness and capacity, primarily influenced by rescaling governance and emergency politics, by clarifying the systemic disconnect, assessing rescaling conditions, and studying the impact of emergency politics on citizens’ perceptions, trust, and accountability.
WP5 conducts experimental research on ontological insecurity, responsiveness, trust, and political participation. This involves survey items, lab experiments, and conjoint experiments to analyze the impact of responsiveness on trust, security, participation, satisfaction with democracy, and vote choice.
WP6 analyzes reconnection strategies in three key areas: party revitalization, parliamentary transparency and responsiveness, and youth participation in elections by gathering expert opinions gathered through Delphi exercises in order to shape REDIRECTt's final policy recommendations.
WP7 analyzes new forms of political intermediation to address representative disconnect and complement traditional institutions. This includes citizens’ assemblies, the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), civil society organizations advocating for deliberative democratic innovations and empowering marginalized groups through interviews and ethnographic studies.
WP8 investigates the affective and imaginative disconnect between citizens and politicians through interviews with young MPs and focus groups with young people multiple countries to identify avenues for reconnection and examine expectations that participants have towards each other, as well as the impact on their perception of representative democracy.
WP9 covers dissemination, stakeholder involvement, co-designing recommendations, and redirecting policy learning. Tt revolves around visibility, tailored dissemination events, as well as redirecting policy learning through discussions, online debates, and policy briefs. Its aim is to to ensure the uptake of REDIRECT results and provide reconnection and redirection strategies.