Networked populism and its influence on public goods
The EU project VALPOP investigates how societal networks and their degree of populism, defined as “networked populism”, influence the valuation and distribution of public goods in Europe. The aim is to raise awareness of their influence, increase the transparency of public goods governance and usage, and strengthen the control mechanisms.
“Autocratic and populist tendencies are increasingly challenging democratic governance and the European rule of law, which guarantees the rights and freedom of citizens. This requires a deeper understanding of the underlying processes to establish effective countermeasures. In the light of this, VALPOP aims to contribute with enhanced knowledge about the complex relationship between societal networks, embedded populism, and rule-of-law governance in the creation and distribution of public goods”, explains Harald Puhr, Project Coordinator and Assistant Professor of International Management at the University of Innsbruck.
Starting from the question of how populist actors affect societal networks in media, business, and politics, the project will move to how such networks constrain and support the creation and distribution of public goods. Public goods explored include education, public infrastructure, biodiversity, free press, and access to information.
From data collection, enhanced knowledge to policy recommendations
The first task entails an ambitious data collection effort that captures societal networks in a contemporary and historical context. Societal networks are structures of social actors such as politicians, media, businesses, and non-governmental organisations that lead to certain behavioural patterns, influences, and dynamics. For the data collection, the project will use the latest methods from computational social sciences and apply them to large-scale media, company, and political data.
From this data, VALPOP will link the networks to public goods and investigate the value that society allocates to the latter, how the networks affect the distribution, and what socio-economic consequences this has. Specifically, the project will research how certain layers of society use their networks to absorb public goods and transform them into club goods, focusing on the role that populist actors play in this transformation, relative to their position in the networks. The project defines this as “networked populism”.
The gained knowledge will lead to recommendations for measures to strengthen governance and audit mechanisms in the distribution of public goods and the reporting of their usage. One such measure is the involvement of civic society in the decision-making process, which can help safeguard the rule of law and prevent the misappropriation of public goods by societal networks and populist actors.
“Shaping policy recommendations that could have a lasting positive impact on democracy is an incredible opportunity. By helping to improve the transparency and trustworthiness of rule-of-law-based institutions and policies and expanding active and inclusive citizenship, VALPOP will support the reinvigoration of democratic governance in Europe and beyond”, Harald Puhr concludes.
An international, multidisciplinary collaboration
The VALPOP project constitutes a strong international and multidisciplinary team of researchers and experts in political science, digital social research, law, business, and economics. Partners include: University of Innsbruck (Project Coordinator), Copenhagen Business School, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Kozminski University, Sabancı University, University of Graz, Luiss University, Auckland University of Technology, and In-JeT ApS.
VALPOP is funded by Horizon Europe under “Culture, creativity and inclusive society”, “Democracy”, and the topic on the long-term impact of the rule of law and other European values on socio-economic outcomes. Grant Agreement ID: 101177310. Duration: March 2025 through February 2029. Budget: EUR 2,99 million. For further information, contact Project Coordinator, Harald Puhr at: int-management@uibk.ac.at.
