The INTERFACED consortium's Frankfurt team Anna Geyer, Noah Weber and Claudius Wagemann, responsible for Work Package 7, has submitted its latest report, Deliverable D7.3. Building on the mobilisations identified in D7.2, the report examines how far the demands of mobilisations that are sceptical towards democracy and/or science are taken up by political parties in six countries: Austria, Germany, Italy, Romania, Tunisia and the United Kingdom. Drawing on case studies by country experts across the consortium, it marks a further milestone in the project's comparative work.
Key Findings and Focus Areas
The report codes 190 demands raised by 30 mobilisations since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and compares them with the positions their political allies set out in election manifestos. Healthcare, anti-elitism, democracy and immigration emerge as the most prominent issues. Most demands target national governments or parliaments and call for a change of the status quo. Around two in five demands are sceptical of liberal democracy or of scientific expertise on societal issues such as migration and gender. The overlap between protest demands and party positions is generally high: in 62% of the demand-position pairs, parties take up the mobilisations' demands. Anti-ecology, anti-migration and anti-democracy demands are particularly well represented.
Comparative Analysis and Future Directions
By systematically comparing demands and party positions across very different political contexts, the report offers new insights into the links between protest and institutional politics. It also reflects on the limits of interpreting such overlaps as genuine party responsiveness, setting the stage for a closer look at how institutions react to these movements.
About INTERFACED
Started in January 2025, the INTERFACED project is a collaborative effort to understand and address the "interfacing" between political participants and authority actors. The submission of D7.3 underscores the project's productivity and its commitment to delivering timely, evidence-based research.
Next Steps
The next deliverable of Work Package 7, D7.4, will build on these findings by analysing how the political allies represent the mobilisations' demands in political institutions.
