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

Democracy for the Next Era

This live, event discusses the launch of new research & grassroots initiatives to support democracies in realising societal transformations.

Lue lisää

Rise of political discontent in Finland and Sweden – Panel Discussion on Tuesday 10 May at 13.30-14.30

Miksi tyytymättömyys politiikkaan lisääntyy Suomessa ja Ruotsissa? Millaisia tunteita, kokemuksia ja ajatuksia tämän muutoksen takana on? Miksi ihmiset ovat niin kyllästyneitä siihen, miten asiat ovat?

Lue lisää

Turbulent Times: The Political Consequences of Economic Transformations

Join a workshop with the Professor Mike Savage (LSE) on 31 May 2022 at University of Helsinki!

Lue lisää

Kahdeksan kuplan Suomi -keskustelu 1.3.

Tässä tapahtumassa keskustellaan siitä, millaisia ovat talouden murroksessa elävien ihmisten kokemukset itsestään ja yhteiskunnasta. Tapahtuma on osa Tiedekulman Haloo, Suomi! -ohjelmasarjaa 1.2.–1.3.2022.

Lue lisää

Publications

NORDIC AUTHORITARIANISM: CHILD-REARING VALUES AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR IN A MULTIPARTY CONTEXT

This article explores how authoritarianism as a factor in child-rearing values (CRV) is associated with political orientation, party support, and policy preferences among voters and societal elites in the Nordic context, which is characterized by social trust and solidarity, feelings of affinity, and a modest degree of ideological polarization.

Lue lisää

Unpolitical solutionism: Wealth elite sentiments against democracy and politics

he last few decades have been marked by discourses that challenge many basic presumptions supporting liberal democracy. Populist parties in particular have raised criticism against democratic systems, and authoritarian programmes have made electoral gains. This article offers the elite’s perspective on this phenomenon, which is often discussed in the context of lower income groups.

Lue lisää

See all publications