Fellow Project
2025–2026
Democracy for Real People
Project by
During his fellowship at the Collegium in Zurich, Armin Schäfer explores the challenges and innovations of modern democracy, focusing on how institutions can better reflect citizens’ voices and bridge social divides.
Schäfer is working on two projects. The first is a book manuscript, Democracy for Real People, co-authored with Claudia Landwehr. The book develops a citizen-centered, evidence-based theory of democracy and examines why democratic institutions often fail to deliver equal voice and effective self-government. Combining normative theory and empirical research, it analyzes citizen attitudes, institutional design, and democratic innovation. Switzerland’s power-sharing system and tradition of direct democracy provide a particularly valuable case, and interactions with experts in law, political science, and the UZH Center for the Study of Democracy are expected to greatly enrich the work.
The second project investigates the impact of the growing educational divide on political representation. As education becomes an increasingly significant social and political cleavage, the gap between citizens’ diverse educational backgrounds and the predominantly university-educated members of parliament may shape perceptions of representation and voting behavior. In Zurich, Schäfer collaborates with the UZH program Equality of Opportunity and with Silja Häusermann and Simon Bornschier on a survey to be conducted in four European countries.
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