Institutional Quality, State Intervention, and Democratic Accountability in Europe

Since the turn of the millennium, leading international organizations, such as the World Bank and the UN have stressed the importance of ‘quality of government’ (QoG) for social and economic prosperity.

This project analyzes several aspects of QoG, understood as fair and impartial application of laws and policies with low levels of corruption, and its causes and consequences in contemporary European politics. Building on 12-years of my previous work, the project is broadly organized in two parts. First, I study several consequences of QoG on citizens’ policy preferences.

In a time of rising inequality, I investigate how QoG affects public demand for re-distributive policies like taxation, regulation, and inter-EU aid to members states in need post-COVID-19. I also ask how QoG affects preferences for authoritarian ‘strong-man’-type politics. Second, I am interested in causes of QoG along two lines.

One, I study why voters hold some politicians accountable (or not) when involved in political corruption, and two, if and how political gender equality improves QoG. To carry out this research, I use newly collected primary data in 2020-2021 from several of my ongoing projects.

I apply for the grant to, one, synthesize my current research projects and provide a deeper understanding of the causes and consequences of QoG and to have time to produce high quality publications. And two, to collaborate with several of the world’s leading scholars on these topics at Harvard University