Ongoing projects

The quality of democracy in Europe

This research project has been developed in collaboration with other research institutes and it is coordinated by the Istituto italiano di scienze umane (SUM) of Florence. It aims at contributing to the study of the quality of advanced democracies, in particular European democracies, through the elaboration of an analytical framework which includes various dimensions: rule of law, electoral accountability, interinstitutional accountability, participation, competition, responsiveness, freedom, equality and solidarity. The task of URGE is to analyse the political equality dimension – how political equality is influenced by the presence of socio-economic inequalities and by institutional mechanisms which limit or facilitate the direct conversion of socio-economic resources into political resources – and the solidarity dimension, that is the presence and effectiveness of social rights. From the empirical point of view, such dimensions are analysed, on the one hand, at the domestic level, through the comparative study of some member states, on the other, at the supranational level, considering the European Union’s role in promoting more effective political equality and social rights in member states.