Tackling
Biases and Bubbles
in Participation

What is BIBU?

BIBU – Tackling Biases and Bubbles in Participation – is a research project that explores how the global flux of economic restructuring, urbanisation, and migration, changes citizens’ political capacities, interests, and emotions, and how the political system responds to these changes. The interdisciplinary consortium is composed of researchers from the fields of politics, psychology, social policy, sociology, economics, and communications.

1.

We identify which citizen groups encounter participatory biases that prevent their voices from being heard in decision-making, and which groups operate in bubbles that polarise politics.

2.

We generate understanding, together with citizens, NGO’s, political parties, and interest groups, and search for solutions to participatory biases and bubbles.

3.

We build a democracy incubator, where innovations for bursting political bubbles and overcoming biases are developed through experimentation. The incubator also spreads Finnish best-practices in political inclusion and participation internationally.

More about BIBU

Project sections

Behind biases and bubbles: structural changes in global flux

Economic restructuring: How has it changed voting behaviour and political attitudes over the last 25 years?

Mapping biases and bubbles in citizen participation

Citizens’ capacities, political interests, and feelings: Who is invisible behind participatory biases and who hides in bubbles?

Feeling biases and bubbles: deep stories

Deep stories from citizen groups: The emotions of a society and the feelings of belonging.

Power in the bubble: political elites in flux

Decision makers’ capacities and deep stories in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark.

Biases in outcomes? Responsiveness of Nordic welfare policies

How are the aims and interests of different citizen groups represented in political decision-making?

Beyond biases and bubbles: future policies for a resilient Nordic model

How to reform the Nordic model? Future scenarios.

Democracy Accelerator

Democratic innovations and experiments with which to tackle participatory biases and bubbles.

People

BIBU’s interdisciplinary consortium is composed of researchers from the fields of politics, psychology, social policy, sociology, economics, and communications. The consortium includes researchers and coordinators from seven different organisations.

Democracy Accelerator

We develop and test different solutions for reducing participatory gaps and planting the best of these into Finnish society. Democratic experiments to tackle participatory biases and bubbles.

Bibu Talks

Suomalaisen demokratian kipukohdat ja niiden ratkaisumahdollisuudet

Osallistu CITIZEN-ohjelman hankkeiden politiikkasuosituksen julkaisutilaisuuteen 1.9.2021!

Lue lisää

The Return of Inequality -talk 27.9.2021

Register for a guest talk by professor Mike Savage on his book The Return of Inequality. Hosted by INEQ and BIBU on September 27, 2021.

Lue lisää

Työpaja Sosiaaliturvakomitean työn tueksi kesäkuussa 2021

Missä tulevaisuuden tilanteissa odotat saavasi yhteiskunnan tukea? Millaista tuki olisi? Tule kertomaan, millaisia ajatuksia sosiaaliturva herättää 21.6.

Lue lisää

Kuntalaisten osallistumisen reittejä kehittämässä: Demokratiainnovaatiot

Ilmoittaudu Kuntaliiton kanssa toteutettavaan BIBU Talks tapahtumaan 8.6!

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Publications

Itsepäisyys ja auktoriteetti: tutkimukseen perustuva päätöksenteko sote-uudistuksessa

Asiantuntijatiedon käyttö suurissa yhteiskunnallisissa uudistuksissa on välttämätöntä, mutta ei mutkatonta. Professori Heikki Hiilamon tutkimus 16 vuotta kestäneen sosiaali- ja terveyspalveluiden hallintouudistuksesta osoittaa, että tieteen ja poliittisen päätöksenteon välisessä vuorovaikutuksessa on edelleen parantamisen varaa.

Lue lisää

Signed, Sealed, and Delivered with Trust: Non-Resident Citizens’ Experiences of Newly Adopted Postal Voting

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that the traditional “booth, ballot, and pen” model of voting, based on a specific location and physical presence, may not be feasible during a health crisis. This situation has highlighted the need to assess whether existing national electoral legislation includes enough instruments to ensure citizens’ safety during voting procedures, even under the conditions of a global pandemic.

Lue lisää

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