Digitalization and Political Behavior, LMU Munich
Led by Prof. Dr. Alexander Wuttke, the teaching unit investigates the state of liberal democracy from the perspective of ordinary citizens and it explores the challenges and opportunities afforded by digitalization. We strive for transparency, rigor, and inclusivity in our research culture. We use computational social science approaches and a broad array of methods for causal inference.
News
| 2024/10 | Pre-Print on AI Conversational Interviewing |
AI Conversational Interviewing: Transforming Surveys with LLMs as Adaptive Interviewers Alexander Wuttke, Matthias Aßenmacher, Christopher Klamm, Max M. Lang, Quirin Würschinger, Frauke Kreuter
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| 2024/09 | DLF Interview: Citizens’ Assemblies |
I was interviewed for “Systemfragen” on the promises and problems of citizen assemblies. |
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| 2024/08 | New Publication: A Very Short Summary of What We Know about Populist Attitudes |
Written with Anne Schulz, we have published an entry in the new Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication. |
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| 2024/07 | BR24 Mitreden: Extreme im Aufwind - Was müssen die anderen Parteien besser machen? |
I participated in a live TV broadcast along with Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann and Marina Weißband on the state of democracy. |
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| 2024/06 | New publication: Making the case for democracy: A field-experiment on democratic persuasion |
This study with my friend Florian Foos was special. During the COVID pandemic we held townhalls on COVID politics with citizens and politicians and we participated in all of them as moderators or experts. For many citizens, this was the first time they could voice their grievances, fears and hopes in a public forum. So, being part of this project, was quite different from our typical office jobs. Also, we learned important insights on how to foster democracy’s societal foundations, see below. Abstract Ordinary citizens can serve as a critical defence against democratic backsliding. But beneath the surface, citizens’ commitment to democracy is sometimes fragile, with crises exacerbating existing anxieties. We introduce ‘democratic persuasion’ as an actionable intervention to foster the resilience of citizens’ commitment to liberal democracy. ‘Democratic persuasion’ seizes the opportunity of communicating with wavering democrats. ‘Democratic persuasion’ entails actively making the case for democracy and discussing democracy’s inherent trade-offs while engaging existing doubts and misperceptions. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which stirred frustrations with democracy and highlighted democratic trade-offs, we invited citizens via Facebook to participate in one of sixteen Zoom town halls to engage in discussions on pandemic politics with members of German state and federal parliaments. Each representative hosted two town halls, with random assignment to a condition of ‘democratic persuasion’ in one of the two town hall meetings. The field experiment yielded mixed results, demonstrating significant effects on some indicators of democratic commitment but not on others. This study contributes to the nascent body of research aimed at reinforcing the societal pillars of liberal democracies. |
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| 2024/04 | New team members |
Dr. Nadine Zwiener-Collins has joined the team as a Postdoctoral researcher. She studies public opinion and political behavior. Next to teaching at GSI, she contributes to the study that evaluates Registered Reports at JOP. Valeriya Barakhvostova joins as a Research assistant. She will support an ongoing study that implements and tests AI Interviewers, i.e. using Large Language Models for In-Depth Interviewing. |
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| 2024/03 | DLF-Interview on Survey Methodology |
Can we trust surveys? Are representative polls possible? Feature in DLF-Systemfragen with soundbites by Rainer Schnell, Werner Krause and myself in German. |
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| 2024/03 | SZ-Interview on Democracy |
German Newspaper Süddeutsche (Katharina Haase) talked with me about democracy and the ongoing protest against the Alternative für Deutschland.
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| 2024/01 | Opinion piece in “Forschung&Lehre” (german) |
Forschung & Lehre published a collection of opinion pieces on “Teaching Today” where I shared my thoughts on artificial intelligence in teaching.
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| 2023/12 | Open Postdoc Teaching position (50%, 1 Year) [position filled] |
There is an open position for a Postdoc at our Teaching Unit for Digitalization and Political Behavior. The position is part-time, starting April 1st for two semesters. It is for teaching one course each semester. The position can be combined with an existing position at LMU (up to 50%) or another university (up to 70%). Applications are encouraged as early as possible. Find more information here. |
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| 2023/12 | FAZ newspaper covers study on populist attitudes |
| Boris Holzer published a summary of our Registered Report study (Nils Steiner, Christian Schimpf, Alexander Wuttke) in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, titled “Der Aufstand der Abgehängten: Warum ist die Wählerschaft populistischer Parteien so divers?” | |
| 2023/12 | Slides on AI in teaching |
| I published some slides (German) | |
| 2023/11 | R Web course |
New Resource to Learn R for Social Science the gentle, fun, and accessible way - no hassle to install R(Studio). Dive right in - individualized feedback - code on your own, within the web browser - plotting, data wrangling and analysis Made by Philipp Schröder, Laura Kiemes and Alexander Wuttke. Made possible by funding from LMU and Geschwister Scholl Institute. |
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| 2023/11 | AI Symposium |
The state of Bavaria established a large number of AI professorships in the past years. Today, 10 newly appointed LMU AI and Data Science professors presented their research. |
