POLITSOLID – The Ties that Bind: Experimental Analyses of Political Solidarities in Modern European Democracies

POLITSOLID is a Consolidator Grant Project funded by the European Research Council that kicked off on 01 January 2021 and will extend to the end of 2026.

This project is receiving funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 864818).

Goal: This ERC Consolidator Grant project POLITSOLID investigates the micro-foundations of political solidarities in fast-changing European polities. It analyses why some ordinary citizens show a high overall willingness to shoulder costs of public redistribution to other people in a polity, while others do not; and why ordinary citizens have multiple levels of willingness to shoulder costs depending on who receives the benefit.

Relevance: Having high levels of political solidarities is important for modern democracies to deal with exogenous shocks and long-term structural changes in their societies, which create pressures on the political system. Recent exogenous shocks in Europe that brought the necessity of political solidarities to light were the financial crisis (2007/8) with its extensive transnational bail-out policies across the European Union and the large refugee intake (2015/16). Relevant long-term structural changes are population ageing, rising income inequality and mass immigration.

POLITSOLID answers the overarching research question: What drives political solidarities in modern European democracies?

Objectives
• To create a novel theoretical and empirical framework that allows simultaneous modelling of multiple political solidarities and that includes the individual as well as the macro levels to enable better predictions about how people behave.
• To test causal mechanisms with a range of mostly experimental methods to get a better understanding of causality where observational studies have so far dominated.
• To isolate effective levers that political actors can pull to create political solidarities. Data: POLITSOLID collects and analyses new data from (1) lab experiments & online surveys, (2) a simulated artificial state ‘Novaland’ in which volunteers from Austria, Germany & Switzerland act as citizens in an online environment, with experimental treatments applied, (3) an international panel survey in six countries and (4) field experiments in collaboration with real political actors.
Publications
  • Eicheler, Jakob J. (2026). What drives European solidarity? Evidence on identity-based, value-based, and utilitarian explanations. European Union Politics, 27(2), 325–348. https://doi.org/10.1177/14651165261423107
  • Goerres, Achim and Eicheler, Jakob (2025). Do voters on the left show more solidarity behaviour? Novel behavioural evidence from interactive surveys in Austria, West and East Germany. Electoral Studies, 97, 102980. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102980
  • Clasen, Patrick (2024). Treating nations like people: How responsibility attributions shape citizens’ fiscal solidarity with other EU countries. Journal of European Social Policy, 34(2), 185–199. https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287241229669
  • Goerres, Achim and Vail, Mark I. (2024). How national models of solidarity shaped public support for policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis in 2020–2021. Frontiers in Political Science, 6, 1273824. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2024.1273824
  • Goerres, Achim and Höhne, Jan Karem (2023). Evaluating the Response Effort and Data Quality of Established Political Solidarity Measures: A Pre-Registered Experimental Test in an Online Survey of the German Adult Resident Population in 2021. Quality & Quantity, 57(6), 5641–5663. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-022-01594-4
  • Höhne, Jan Karem and Goerres, Achim (2023). Question Order Effects: How Robust are Survey Measures on Political Solidarities with Reference to Germany and Europe? International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 26(6), 721–735. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2023.2227011
  • Goerres, Achim (2021). The research agenda of POLITSOLID. The ties that bind—Experimental analyses of political solidarities in modern European Democracies. Social Science Research Network (SSRN). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3792243
Online Working Papers
  • Goerres, Achim, Eicheler, Jakob, and Höhne, Jan Karem (2025). Welcome to Novaland: A Proof-of-Concept Study to Analyse Individual Behaviour in a Virtual State on a Text-Based Platform. Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Link
  • Goerres, Achim, Tepe, Markus S. and Eicheler, Jakob (2024), Costly Solidarity Behavior and the Identity of Others: The Novel Identity-Solidarity Game in a Large Panel Survey of the German Resident population (February 6, 2024), Soc. Sci. Res. Netw. (2024). LINK
Data
  • Goerres, Achim; Höhne, Jan Karem, 2022, “Replication Data for: Evaluating the Response Effort and Data Quality of Established Political Solidarity Measures – A Pre-Registered Experimental Test in an Online Survey of the German Adult Resident Population in 2021”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/XKERRU , Harvard Dataverse, V1.
 
Working Papers (Submitted or In Preparation)

This page contains material that is still work-in-progress or in the peer-review process of social science journals. You can access most of our papers in full-text via the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), the Open Science Framework (OSF), or SocArXiv.

  • Goerres, Achim, Chapkovski, Philipp, Eicheler, Jakob, and Kemper, Philipp. What explains Political Solidarity across Europe? Novel Comparative Survey Evidence from Seven European Countries in 2026.
  • Goerres, Achim, Chapkovski, Philipp, Eicheler, Jakob, and Kemper, Philipp. When Public Services Fail: Dynamic Effects of Service Quality and Petty Corruption on Spending Support and Trust in Government.
  • Goerres, Achim and Vüllers, Johannes. Do Natural Disasters Produce Positive Solidarity Outcomes? A Natural-Experimental Analysis of 38 African Countries.
  • Goerres, Achim, Höhne, Jan Karem, and Eicheler, Jakob. Virtual Worlds and Measurements of Meaningful Political Behaviour.
  • Eicheler, Jakob, Goerres, Achim, Höhne, Jan Karem, and Tepe, Markus. Putting the Solidarity Game Online: A Feasibility Study using oTree.
Upcoming Presentations
  • Council for European Studies (CES) International Conference of Europeanists 16–18 June 2026 | Dublin, Ireland
  • European Political Science Society (EPSS) Annual Conference 18–20 June 2026 | Belfast, UK
  • Dreiländertagung (DVPW, ÖGPW, SVPW) „Europas Zukunft – Zukunft Europa. Innere Spannungen und äußere Herausforderungen“ 17–19 June 2026 | Zeppelin Universität, Friedrichshafen, Germany
Past Presentations
2025
  • ESRA (European Survey Research Association) Conference| 14–18 July 2025 | Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
  • EPSA (European Political Science Association) Annual Conference | 26–28 June 2025 | Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
2024
  • EPSA Annual Conference | Cologne, Germany (4–6 July 2024) A. Goerres & J. Eicheler: Do Left Voters Behave in a More Solidary Manner? Experimental Evidence from Austria and Germany.
  • MZES Workshop | Mannheim, Germany (14–15 March 2024) "Experimental Research on ethnic diversity, discrimination, and pro-sociality in European societies" (convened by Tamara Gutfleisch & Johanna Gereke).
2023
  • Witten-Herdecke Workshop | Witten, Germany (21–22 September 2023) A. Goerres, J.K. Höhne, & J. Eicheler: Political Solidarities in Novaland. Can we Simulate the Experience of States, Economies and Public Policies in a Virtual Online State?
  • ECPR General Conference | Prague, Czech Republic (4 September 2023) A. Goerres & J. Eicheler: Political Solidarities in Novaland: Can we Simulate the Experience of States, Economies and Public Policies in a Virtual Online State?
  • EPSA Annual Conference | Glasgow, UK
    • A. Goerres, J. Eicheler, J.K. Höhne, & M. Tepe: What is the effect of norm transparency on solidarity behavior? A cross-national experiment.
    • A. Goerres, J.K. Höhne, & J. Eicheler: Political Solidarities in Novaland. Can we Simulate the Experience of States, Economies and Public Policies in a Virtual Online State?
  • Invited Talks & Institutional Visits:
    • University of Cologne (Center for Comparative Politics)
    • Konstanz Center for Data and Methods
    • 24 Hours Political Psychology (Bielefeld)
    • University College London (UCL)
    • King's College London (KCL)
    • Nuffield College, Oxford
    • University of Utrecht (Presented paper: Goerres et al. Witten 2023)
2022
  • Conference Presentations & Workshops: 24 Hours Political Psychology (Chemnitz), DVPW Decision Theory (Oldenburg), DVPW Empirical Methods (Hamburg), ECPR General Conference (Innsbruck), EPSA (Prague), Institute for Social Cohesion (Bremen), GOR (Berlin), LMU Munich (Department of Political Science, Chair Knill), University of Duisburg-Essen, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (Cologne), Project Workshop (Duisburg).
2021
  • Council for European Studies (CES)
16.06.2026 - Fieldwork Progress, Survey Updates, and Upcoming Conferences

We have made major progress over the last few months across our main empirical pillars:

  • Articles published: We recently published two research articles, identifying the drivers of European solidarity (European Union Politics, 2026) and linking left-wing ideology and voting to solidarity behaviour (Electoral Studies, 2025).
  • Cross-national panel survey: We have successfully collected Wave 1 of our cross-national panel survey in seven European countries (see regional mean political solidarity levels in the map below). We currently develop the questionnaire for the second wave, and have already written the first papers using the data.
  • Field experiment implemented: Following our planning phase with the city administration, we have implemented our field experiment with kindergarten parents in Duisburg.
  • Qualitative focus groups: We are currently conducting qualitative focus group discussions to supplement our quantitative insights from the field experiment.
  • Publications & Presentations: Several new papers from the project are currently under peer review. We are also preparing to share our recent findings at multiple upcoming conferences this summer.
Map of Political Solidarity levels across Europe. Lighter colours indicate more Political Solidarity  
 
28.07.2025 Over the past months, the POLITSOLID team has made progress in several key areas:
  • Cross-national panel survey: We are preparing a major two-wave panel study on political solidarities, to be fielded across several European countries in 2025/2026.
  • Field experiment planning: Together with our ethics advisor Peter John (King’s College London), we held a workshop to plan a field experiment. We are in talks with the city of Duisburg regarding the details.
  • New paper submitted: We submitted our latest paper on Novaland, which experimentally examines how positive, negative, and corrupt public service experiences shape political trust and solidarities.
  • Conference presentations: We presented our research at the 2025 conferences of the European Political Science Association (EPSA) in Madrid and the European Survey Research Association (ESRA) in Utrecht.03.04.2025 - Achim Goerres added an update Crossnational Panel Survey, Workshop, Papers Last week, we hosted a pre-read academic workshop at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), bringing together researchers from Germany 🇩🇪, the USA 🇺🇸, Italy 🇮🇹, and Belgium 🇧🇪. The workshop featured working papers on social science experiments, social policy, and political solidarities, presented by invited colleagues and members of the POLITSOLID project. We’re grateful for the intense discussions and constructive feedback. Several of the papers are now being revised for submission to peer-reviewed journals.At the same time, we’re preparing the launch of our cross-national panel survey on political solidarities in Europe—more updates to follow soon. Workshop participants from left to right: Achim Goerres (UDE), Philipp Chapkovski (UDE), Philipp Kemper (UDE), Conrad Ziller (UDE), Nan Zhang (University of Mannheim & MZES), Maj-Britt Sterba (University of Konstanz), Markus Tepe (University of Bremen), Paul Gies (UDE), Jan Karem Höhne (Leibniz University Hannover & DZHW), Jakob Eicheler (UDE), Jan Sauermann (University of Oldenburg), Silke Goubin (KU Leuven), Simone Cremaschi (Bocconi University). Not pictured: Charlotte Cavaillé (University of Michigan)18.11.2024 - Achim Goerres added an updateCrossnational Panel Survey, Workshop, PapersDear all, over the past two months, we have made progress on key aspects of our project. We began planning our cross-national panel survey on political solidarities. It will be fielded in two waves across several European countries in 2025. Preparations are also underway for our second workshop at the University of Duisburg-Essen in March 2025. This pre-read workshop will enable in-depth discussions on papers from invited guests and the project team. We have also submitted abstracts to various conferences, and look forward to presenting our work and engaging with you there. We have analysed data from our October data collection in the virtual online state of Novaland and plan to submit the resulting working paper early this year. Additionally, we are completing several papers based on previous data collections. Some are under review, while others will be submitted soon. 18.11.2024 - Achim Goerres added an update Data Collection Novaland-2, Past and Upcoming Presentations Dear all, over the past month, our team has been working to collect data from approximately 1,600 German-speaking respondents, using the virtual online state Novaland in October. In September, we attended the DVPW Convention 2024, where Achim Goerres presented the paper “Lost Souls of Liberal Democracy: How Dark Personality and the Need for Chaos Push Substantial Groups in Germany to the Edge of the Political System”, co-authored with Conrad Ziller. In a submitted panel, Jakob Eicheler presented his PhD research findings on European Solidarity over time. Achim Goerres presented our paper on the feasibility of conducting research with Novaland (working paper). We are currently preparing a working paper with results from the recent Novaland-2 data collection, to be presented at the Current Directions in Research on Political Support - Conference 2024, organised by Conrad Ziller at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Jakob Eicheler will present a working paper at the meeting of the European Political Dynamics Group led by Theresa Kuhn. Our next public presentation will be at our department’s Mittagsforum on 4 December 2024, where you will hear the latest results from Novaland-2. The event will be held in a hybrid format, so please contact us if you would like to attend! 05.09.2024 - Achim Goerres added an update Pilot of Novaland-2 and Further Plans, Presentations and PhD Viva Passed Dear all, Over the past few months, we’ve made significant progress in further developing the online virtual state "Novaland". We recently conducted a qualitative pilot study with the Novaland-2 version with N=29 students. This pilot provided valuable insights into participants’ thought processes within and about Novaland. Building on this, we plan to conduct a large (N~1600) Novaland-2 data collection this month. We are also continuing work on several papers based on previous data collections with Novaland-1 and the solidarity game. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to present and discuss our research at several conferences. Thank you to all those who provided valuable feedback! Achim Goerres presented the paper “Lost Souls of Liberal Democracy: How Dark Personality and the Need for Chaos Push Substantial Groups in Germany to the Edge of the Political System”, co-authored with Conrad Ziller, at the Emotional Dynamics of (In)security and Politics Conference in Saarbrücken, Germany. He also presented our online experiment on how identity cues affect solidarity behaviour at the NOPSA 2024 Workshop Sessions in Bergen, Norway. Jakob Eicheler (né Kemper) presented this study and a second paper on the association of left-right orientation and solidarity behaviour at the EPSA 2024 General Conference in Cologne, Germany. Lastly, we’re excited to announce that Patrick Clasen, a PhD student affiliated with the project, successfully passed his viva in July. Congratulations, Patrick!
    04.06.2024 - Achim Goerres added an update Novaland, Papers, Presentations, Publications and PhD Submission Dear all, In the last few months, Philipp Chapkovski and Philipp Kemper joined the POLITSOLID team. We have focused on further developing the online virtual state "Novaland". Currently, we are testing a new version with several online access panels, and are planning a larger data collection in fall 2024. We are working on several papers based on previous data collections, mainly using the solidarity game to combine attitudinal and behavioural measurements of solidarity. Philipp Chapkovski presented a paper at the International Meeting on Experimental and Behavioral Social Sciences (IMEBESS) at the University of Latvia, Riga on the 23rd - 25th May 2024. In June and July, he will be giving presentations at the ‘Emotional Dynamics of (In)security and Politics’ conference in Saarbrücken, at the NoPSA Congress in Bergen, and at the EPSA conference in Cologne. We are pleased to announce that Patrick Clasen, a PhD student affiliated with the project, submitted his PhD thesis in May. He has recently published a paper on how perceptions of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ determine European citizens’ willingness to help other EU countries in European Union Politics. 19.02.2024 - Achim Goerres added an update New project members and other updates Dear all, We are pleased to announce that two new researchers are joining the POLITSOLID project team. (Philipp Chapkovski) will join the POLITSOLID team in March as a postdoctoral researcher. He will use his experience with online experiments to contribute to the further development of our online virtual state "Novaland". Philipp Kemper will join the POLITSOLID team in February as a pre-doctoral project officer . Achim Goerres and Mark Vail recently published a research article on how national models of solidarity shaped public support for policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis in Frontiers of Political Science. Patrick Clasen recently published a research article on how responsibility attributions shape citizens’ fiscal solidarity with other EU countries in the Journal of European Social Policy. In December we completed the data collection of a two-wave panel survey in Germany. The first working paper with data from this survey is (available on SSRN), and we received helpful comments on the paper at the Virtual APSA meeting in February. In the coming months we will focus on developing our online virtual state "Novaland" and revising our working papers for submission.
    24.07.2023 - Achim Goerres added an update ResearchGate project function no longer available ResearchGate stopped offering its project function. The last RG update were thus posted in March 2023, see below.>br> We are now entering another phase of the project. We are currently in the field with an online survey where we test stuff for a large comparative international survey. Moreover, we are bringing Novaland to higher server capacity and to sequential data collection. We are also working on many papers from our online survey in Austria and Germany from May 23 and from Novaland in May 23. We gave plenty of presentations in spring and summer 2023.
    14.03.2023 – Achim Goerres added an update New project homepage POLITSOLID and follow project members Dear all, please follow the people involved in POLITSOLID on ResearchGate Jan Karem Höhne Jakob Jonathan Kemper @Joshua-Claassen @AchimGoerres to continue receiving project news. Please book mark the new project homepage with all publications and links http://achimgoerres.de/politsolid Here are some further news. Jan Karem Höhne will join the University of Hannover as Assistant Professor of Survey Methodology on 01 May 2023 and continue to work on our project. Joshua Claassen https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joshua-Claassen will join the project team as junior project officer and PhD student on 01 May 2023. We are currently collecting data in two countries on simulatenous interactive instruments of solidarity (with Markus S. Tepe) and further developping our virtual online state.
    10.11.2023 – Jan Karem Höhne added an update Artificial Online State NOVALAND Yesterday, we successfully conducted the first large-scale study of the artificial online state Novaland with more than 300 participants that were recruited via social media networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. Here are some first-hand insights into data collection.
    22.08.2022 - Jakob Kemper added an update We are at the ECPR General Conference 2022 We'll present our work this week at the ECPR General Conference 2022 in Innsbruck. First talk coming up today: The behavioural consequences of political solidarities: Validating the solidarity game on a representative online sample with real-time interaction in oTree Where? Building: D, Floor: G, Room: HS1 When? Monday 13:00 - 14:45 (22/08/2022) The second talk takes place on thursday: Piloting Experimental Tests of Macro-Micro-Level Effects in an Artificial Online State: How Income Inequalities Affect Political Solidarities Where? Building: A, Floor: 1, Room: SR1 When? Thursday 14:00 - 15:45 (25/08/2022) I would be very happy to meet with you if you're interested in our work.
    27.06.2022 - Jakob Kemper added an update Two presentations at EPSA Annual Conference 2022 On friday, I presented two papers at the EPSA Annual Conference in Prague. We are very grateful for the comments and questions from the discussants and the audience. In the paper "Piloting Experimental Tests of Macro-Micro-Level Effects in an Artificial Online State: How Income Inequalities Affect Political Solidarities" I presented first results from the experiments in our artificial state Novaland. In the paper "The behavioural consequences of political solidarities: Validating the solidarity game on a representative online sample with real-time interaction in oTree" I presented our online implementation of the solidarity game by Selten and Ockenfels (1998) and the plans we have to use this measurement instrument.
    11.06.2022 - Jakob Kemper added an update Economic games in political science: Testing the Usability of Solidarity Game Experiments using the open-source platform oTree I presented first results from a pilot study we conducted together with Markus Tepe at the Annual Conference of the Section Methods of Political Science (DVPW), 10 June 2022. Economic games in political science: Testing the Usability of Solidarity Game Experiments using the open-source platform oTree Authors: Jakob Kemper, Achim Goerres, Jan Höhne, Markus Tepe Political psychology and sociology frequently aim to measure the multi-dimensional concept of political solidarity using survey measures. This is done in major surveys, such as the World Values Surveys (WVS). However, political scientists point to methodological shortcomings of survey measures and argue for the use of (experimental) behavioural measures that are collected via behavioural games, such as the solidarity game. The main reason is that political scientists are usually not primarily interested in the attitudes per se, but in the behaviour these elicit. Most frequently, games are conducted in lab rather than in field settings reducing external validity. Solidarity-based behaviour is difficult to measure in the field, but measuring it could help to better understand contributions to a political community. The open-source platform oTree allows researchers to conduct browser-based, interactive experiments and surveys. The programming of the experiment can be done visually via a user-friendly interface in oTree studio or in the programming language Python. In this talk, I present a solidarity game programmed in oTree, and the results from pilot tests with participants from a convenience sample. The game will enable political scientists to measure political solidarity behaviour in a simple way. In addition, I present my research agenda regarding the use of behavioural measures in the study of political solidarities. Measuring human behaviour in an experimental setting allows political scientists to better understand and predict human behaviour in the real world. The transfer of methods from behavioural economics to political science will open new avenues for research.
    31.05.2022 - Achim Goerres added an update First results of artifical online state experience presented in Munich Living in Novaland: Can we Simulate the Experience of States and Public Policies in an Artificial Online State? Jan Karem Höhne Jakob Jonathan Kemper and programmer Raphael Hürler invited by Christoph Knill, LM University of Munich, 31 May 2022 What if we could experimentally manipulate all characteristics of states and public policies and estimate their effects on citizens? This presentation puts forward the first evidence from a pilot of Novaland. Novaland is an artificial liberal democracy that only exists online and that has characteristics realistically drawn from German, Romanian and US contexts. The pilot consists of an experimental online platform based on text, images and audio in which volunteers (a) are surveyed before they go into the experience, (b) are randomly assigned to different experiences, such as defined by income, quality of government or state corruption, (c) interact with each other simultaneously and (d) thereby co-create collective decisions, such as elections or donation pools, that then determine the course of Novaland and thereby the subsequent experiences of the participants. The pilot gives us many insights into the usefulness of such full experiential simulations in the social sciences. Can this technically and organizationally be done? Do participants behave in an externally valid manner? Do they behave sincerely? What is the potential of such an approach for finding causal effects?
    28.04.2022 - Achim Goerres added an update Workshop Politsolid in Duisburg Jan Karem Höhne Jakob Jonathan Kemper and I are organising the first workshop in Duisburg 28-30 April. We have guests from Norway, the UK, Austria and Germany who are coming to Germany. a whole workshop on the politics of solidarities
    21.02.2022 - Achim Goerres added an update We R learning O-tree and programming new behavioural instruments We have started working with Markus S. Tepe to develop new measures of solidarities for the online framework Otree. Jakob Jonathan Kemper is taking the technical lead on Otree and will present first results on 10-11 March at the 24h Political Psychology Network meeting in Chemnitz.
    22.01.2022 - Achim Goerres added an update >br> New PhD student and project officer Jakob Kemper, two new working papers, one new presentation Jakob Jonathan Kemper joined the POLITSOLID project in November 2021 or 3 years as project officer and PhD student. Jan Karem Höhne and I have a new paper under review about how to optimally measure political solidarities in survey Mark Vail and I have a new paper under review about public responses towards the Covid crisis in the US and DE, using the concept of national models of solidarity. I gave a presentation at the Research Institute for Social Cohesion Germany. Materials can be found here www.achimgoerres.de/politsolid Jan, Jakob and I submitted the first-year deliverables to the ERC as to data protection, data management and ethics management. Prof Peter John of King's College London is our ethics advisor for the rest of the project. Objectives for 2022
    1. get rich and famouswhile we are wating for that
    2. Jakob Jonathan Kemper will define his PhD thesis and craft his first paper
    3. we are working with Markus S. Tepe to create behavioural instruments to measure solidarity in online and offline surveys
    4. we are developing a pilot of an online platform to create an artifical world where volunteers can interact
    5. we are organising a workshop on solidarity with colleagues from economics, sociology and political science
    25.06.2021 - Achim Goerres added an update Recruiting Predoc ERC-CoG project POLITSOLID We are recruiting a predoc for three years for th ERC-project POLITSOLID. 1700 € net salary after taxes and health insurance in Duisburg The ideal candidate should care about why individuals behave politically as they do and in cutting-edge experimental and survey methods. Deadline is 14 July 2021 Start http://bit.ly/politsolid_doc_EN http://bit.ly/politsolid_doc_DE
    16.06.2021 - Achim Goerres added an update First POLITSOLID paper: Achim Goerres and Mark I. Vail As part of the theory development, I have co-authored a paper with Mark Vail from Wake Forest @MarkVail about the ways in which the United States and Germany reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic and what we can learn from that about political solidarities. Solidarities, Fairness, and Economic Governance in Advanced Capitalism: The Cases of COVID-19 Responses in Germany and the United States This paper addresses the theoretical question of how competing models of social and economic solidarity shape patterns of economic governance in periods of economic crisis. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a signal case, we seek to understand how changes in public opinion in response to similar social and economic shocks are informed by deeper ideational structures among citizens relating to their capacity for empathy, mutual support, and willingness to support and trust public policy interventions. Drawing on scholarly literatures related to moral economies and the social embeddedness of economic relationships, we undertake an empirical study of how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped patterns of support for social and economic policies. We focus on Germany and the United States, countries with widely divergent modes of integration of capitalist markets and, therefore, potentially different levels of support for particular kinds of policy responses. We trace American and German policy responses since March 2020 across a number of domains, complemented by a systematic analysis of public opinion in the two countries, drawing from fifteen different sources of public-opinion data, in order to assess the pandemic’s effects on public support for individualized and collectively-oriented policy responses. The paper is available here https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3868185 https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/x37qr (the second still needs pre-approval). The paper will be presented next week at the virtual Annual Conference of the Council for European Studies
    24.02.2021 - Achim Goerres added an update We R live: Research Agenda online Jan Karem Höhne and I started working on POLITSOLID. Find the Research Agenda for five years here as an online paper http://ssrn.com/abstract=3792243
    27.11.2020 - Achim Goerres added an update Presentation at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies Cologne On 27 November 2020, I am giving a presentation in German More with one another and more against one another? Political Solidarities during the Corona Pandemic. find a pre-recorded presentation here https://vimeo.com/484330436 and the slides below Goerres_MPIfG_Institutstag_20201127.pdf
    16.11.2020 - Achim Goerres added an update Postdoc recruited I am happy to report that I could recruit Jan Karem Höhne as the leading postdoc for POLITSOLID. Jan Karem Höhne is currently working in the research cluster The Political Economy of Reform at the University of Mannheim. He will start in Duisburg in January 2021.
    07.09.2020 - Achim Goerres added an update I am recruiting a postdoc to start 01 January 2021 please apply by 14 September https://bit.ly/politsolid_postdoc_en Please share widely.
    04.12.2019 - Achim Goerres added a project goal This ERC Consolidator Grant project POLITSOLID investigates the micro-foundations of political solidarities in fast-changing European polities. It analyses why some ordinary citizens show a high overall willingness to shoulder costs of public redistribution to other people in a polity, while others do not; and why ordinary citizens have multiple levels of willingness to shoulder costs depending on who receives the benefit. Relevance: Having high levels of political solidarities is important for modern democracies to deal with exogenous shocks and long-term structural changes in their societies, which create pressures on the political system. Recent exogenous shocks in Europe that brought the necessity of political solidarities to light were the financial crisis (2007/8) with its extensive transnational bail-out policies across the European Union and the large refugee intake (2015/16). Relevant long-term structural changes are population ageing, rising income inequality and mass immigration. POLITSOLID answers the overarching research question: What drives political solidarities in modern European democracies? Objectives
    • To create a novel theoretical and empirical framework that allows simultaneous modelling of multiple political solidarities and that includes the individual as well as the macro levels to enable better predictions about how people behave.
    • To test causal mechanisms with a range of mostly experimental methods to get a better understanding of causality where observational studies have so far dominated.
    • To isolate effective levers that political actors can pull to create political solidarities.
    Data: POLITSOLID collects and analyses new data from (1) lab experiments & online surveys, (2) a simulated artificial state ‘Novaland’ in which volunteers from Austria, Germany & Switzerland act as 14.03.2023 – Achim Goerres added an update New project homepage POLITSOLID and follow project members Dear all, please follow the people involved in POLITSOLID on ResearchGate Jan Karem Höhne Jakob Jonathan Kemper @Joshua-Claassen @AchimGoerres to continue receiving project news. Please book mark the new project homepage with all publications and links http://achimgoerres.de/politsolid Here are some further news. Jan Karem Höhne will join the University of Hannover as Assistant Professor of Survey Methodology on 01 May 2023 and continue to work on our project. Joshua Claassen https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joshua-Claassen will join the project team as junior project officer and PhD student on 01 May 2023 We are currently collecting data in two countries on simulatenous interactive instruments of solidarity (with Markus S. Tepe) and further developping our virtual online state.
    10.11.2023 – Jan Karem Höhne added an update Artificial Online State NOVALAND Yesterday, we successfully conducted the first large-scale study of the artificial online state Novaland with more than 300 participants that were recruited via social media networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. Here are some first-hand insights into data collection.
    22.08.2022 - Jakob Kemper added an update We are at the ECPR General Conference 2022 We'll present our work this week at the ECPR General Conference 2022 in Innsbruck. First talk coming up today: The behavioural consequences of political solidarities: Validating the solidarity game on a representative online sample with real-time interaction in oTree Where? Building: D, Floor: G, Room: HS1 When? Monday 13:00 - 14:45 (22/08/2022) The second talk takes place on thursday: Piloting Experimental Tests of Macro-Micro-Level Effects in an Artificial Online State: How Income Inequalities Affect Political Solidarities Where? Building: A, Floor: 1, Room: SR1 When? Thursday 14:00 - 15:45 (25/08/2022) I would be very happy to meet with you if you're interested in our work.
    27.06.2022 - Jakob Kemper added an update Two presentations at EPSA Annual Conference 2022 On friday, I presented two papers at the EPSA Annual Conference in Prague. We are very grateful for the comments and questions from the discussants and the audience. In the paper "Piloting Experimental Tests of Macro-Micro-Level Effects in an Artificial Online State: How Income Inequalities Affect Political Solidarities" I presented first results from the experiments in our artificial state Novaland. In the paper "The behavioural consequences of political solidarities: Validating the solidarity game on a representative online sample with real-time interaction in oTree" I presented our online implementation of the solidarity game by Selten and Ockenfels (1998) and the plans we have to use this measurement instrument.
    11.06.2022 - Jakob Kemper added an update Economic games in political science: Testing the Usability of Solidarity Game Experiments using the open-source platform oTree I presented first results from a pilot study we conducted together with Markus Tepe at the Annual Conference of the Section Methods of Political Science (DVPW), 10 June 2022. Economic games in political science: Testing the Usability of Solidarity Game Experiments using the open-source platform oTree Authors: Jakob Kemper, Achim Goerres, Jan Höhne, Markus Tepe Political psychology and sociology frequently aim to measure the multi-dimensional concept of political solidarity using survey measures. This is done in major surveys, such as the World Values Surveys (WVS). However, political scientists point to methodological shortcomings of survey measures and argue for the use of (experimental) behavioural measures that are collected via behavioural games, such as the solidarity game. The main reason is that political scientists are usually not primarily interested in the attitudes per se, but in the behaviour these elicit. Most frequently, games are conducted in lab rather than in field settings reducing external validity. Solidarity-based behaviour is difficult to measure in the field, but measuring it could help to better understand contributions to a political community. The open-source platform oTree allows researchers to conduct browser-based, interactive experiments and surveys. The programming of the experiment can be done visually via a user-friendly interface in oTree studio or in the programming language Python. In this talk, I present a solidarity game programmed in oTree, and the results from pilot tests with participants from a convenience sample. The game will enable political scientists to measure political solidarity behaviour in a simple way. In addition, I present my research agenda regarding the use of behavioural measures in the study of political solidarities. Measuring human behaviour in an experimental setting allows political scientists to better understand and predict human behaviour in the real world. The transfer of methods from behavioural economics to political science will open new avenues for research.
    31.05.2022 - Achim Goerres added an update First results of artifical online state experience presented in Munich Living in Novaland: Can we Simulate the Experience of States and Public Policies in an Artificial Online State? Jan Karem Höhne Jakob Jonathan Kemper and programmer Raphael Hürler invited by Christoph Knill, LM University of Munich, 31 May 2022 What if we could experimentally manipulate all characteristics of states and public policies and estimate their effects on citizens? This presentation puts forward the first evidence from a pilot of Novaland. Novaland is an artificial liberal democracy that only exists online and that has characteristics realistically drawn from German, Romanian and US contexts. The pilot consists of an experimental online platform based on text, images and audio in which volunteers (a) are surveyed before they go into the experience, (b) are randomly assigned to different experiences, such as defined by income, quality of government or state corruption, (c) interact with each other simultaneously and (d) thereby co-create collective decisions, such as elections or donation pools, that then determine the course of Novaland and thereby the subsequent experiences of the participants. The pilot gives us many insights into the usefulness of such full experiential simulations in the social sciences. Can this technically and organizationally be done? Do participants behave in an externally valid manner? Do they behave sincerely? What is the potential of such an approach for finding causal effects?
    28.04.2022 - Achim Goerres added an update Workshop Politsolid in Duisburg Jan Karem Höhne Jakob Jonathan Kemper and I are organising the first workshop in Duisburg 28-30 April. We have guests from Norway, the UK, Austria and Germany who are coming to Germany. a whole workshop on the politics of solidarities
    21.02.2022 - Achim Goerres added an update We R learning O-tree and programming new behavioural instruments We have started working with Markus S. Tepe to develop new measures of solidarities for the online framework Otree. Jakob Jonathan Kemper is taking the technical lead on Otree and will present first results on 10-11 March at the 24h Political Psychology Network meeting in Chemnitz.
    22.01.2022 - Achim Goerres added an update New PhD student and project officer Jakob Kemper, two new working papers, one new presentation Jakob Jonathan Kemper joined the POLITSOLID project in November 2021 or 3 years as project officer and PhD student. Jan Karem Höhne and I have a new paper under review about how to optimally measure political solidarities in survey Mark Vail and I have a new paper under review about public responses towards the Covid crisis in the US and DE, using the concept of national models of solidarity. I gave a presentation at the Research Institute for Social Cohesion Germany. Materials can be found here www.achimgoerres.de/politsolid Jan, Jakob and I submitted the first-year deliverables to the ERC as to data protection, data management and ethics management. Prof Peter John of King's College London is our ethics advisor for the rest of the project. Objectives for 2022
    1. get rich and famouswhile we are wating for that
    2. Jakob Jonathan Kemper will define his PhD thesis and craft his first paper
    3. we are working with Markus S. Tepe to create behavioural instruments to measure solidarity in online and offline surveys
    4. we are developing a pilot of an online platform to create an artifical world where volunteers can interact
    5. we are organising a workshop on solidarity with colleagues from economics, sociology and political science
    25.06.2021 - Achim Goerres added an update Recruiting Predoc ERC-CoG project POLITSOLID We are recruiting a predoc for three years for th ERC-project POLITSOLID. 1700 € net salary after taxes and health insurance in Duisburg The ideal candidate should care about why individuals behave politically as they do and in cutting-edge experimental and survey methods. Deadline is 14 July 2021 Start http://bit.ly/politsolid_doc_EN http://bit.ly/politsolid_doc_DE
    16.06.2021 - Achim Goerres added an update First POLITSOLID paper: Achim Goerres and Mark I. Vail As part of the theory development, I have co-authored a paper with Mark Vail from Wake Forest @MarkVail about the ways in which the United States and Germany reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic and what we can learn from that about political solidarities. Solidarities, Fairness, and Economic Governance in Advanced Capitalism: The Cases of COVID-19 Responses in Germany and the United States This paper addresses the theoretical question of how competing models of social and economic solidarity shape patterns of economic governance in periods of economic crisis. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a signal case, we seek to understand how changes in public opinion in response to similar social and economic shocks are informed by deeper ideational structures among citizens relating to their capacity for empathy, mutual support, and willingness to support and trust public policy interventions. Drawing on scholarly literatures related to moral economies and the social embeddedness of economic relationships, we undertake an empirical study of how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped patterns of support for social and economic policies. We focus on Germany and the United States, countries with widely divergent modes of integration of capitalist markets and, therefore, potentially different levels of support for particular kinds of policy responses. We trace American and German policy responses since March 2020 across a number of domains, complemented by a systematic analysis of public opinion in the two countries, drawing from fifteen different sources of public-opinion data, in order to assess the pandemic’s effects on public support for individualized and collectively-oriented policy responses. The paper is available here https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3868185 https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/x37qr (the second still needs pre-approval). The paper will be presented next week at the virtual Annual Conference of the Council for European Studies
    24.02.2021 - Achim Goerres added an update We R live: Research Agenda online Jan Karem Höhne and I started working on POLITSOLID. Find the Research Agenda for five years here as an online paper http://ssrn.com/abstract=3792243
    27.11.2020 - Achim Goerres added an update Presentation at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies Cologne On 27 November 2020, I am giving a presentation in German More with one another and more against one another? Political Solidarities during the Corona Pandemic. find a pre-recorded presentation here https://vimeo.com/484330436 and the slides below Goerres_MPIfG_Institutstag_20201127.pdf
    16.11.2020 - Achim Goerres added an update Postdoc recruited I am happy to report that I could recruit Jan Karem Höhne as the leading postdoc for POLITSOLID. Jan Karem Höhne is currently working in the research cluster The Political Economy of Reform at the University of Mannheim. He will start in Duisburg in January 2021.
    07.09.2020 - Achim Goerres added an update I am recruiting a postdoc to start 01 January 2021 please apply by 14 September https://bit.ly/politsolid_postdoc_en Please share widely.
    04.12.2019 - Achim Goerres added a project goal This ERC Consolidator Grant project POLITSOLID investigates the micro-foundations of political solidarities in fast-changing European polities. It analyses why some ordinary citizens show a high overall willingness to shoulder costs of public redistribution to other people in a polity, while others do not; and why ordinary citizens have multiple levels of willingness to shoulder costs depending on who receives the benefit. Relevance: Having high levels of political solidarities is important for modern democracies to deal with exogenous shocks and long-term structural changes in their societies, which create pressures on the political system. Recent exogenous shocks in Europe that brought the necessity of political solidarities to light were the financial crisis (2007/8) with its extensive transnational bail-out policies across the European Union and the large refugee intake (2015/16). Relevant long-term structural changes are population ageing, rising income inequality and mass immigration. POLITSOLID answers the overarching research question: What drives political solidarities in modern European democracies? Objectives
    • To create a novel theoretical and empirical framework that allows simultaneous modelling of multiple political solidarities and that includes the individual as well as the macro levels to enable better predictions about how people behave.
    • To test causal mechanisms with a range of mostly experimental methods to get a better understanding of causality where observational studies have so far dominated.
    • To isolate effective levers that political actors can pull to create political solidarities.
    Data: POLITSOLID collects and analyses new data from (1) lab experiments & online surveys, (2) a simulated artificial state ‘Novaland’ in which volunteers from Austria, Germany & Switzerland act as citizens in an online environment, with experimental treatments applied, (3) an international panel survey in six countries and (4) field experiments in collaboration with real political actors. citizens in an online environment, with experimental treatments applied, (3) an international panel survey in six countries and (4) field experiments in collaboration with real political actors.
Project Team & Collaborators
  • PI: Prof. Dr. Achim Goerres, University of Duisburg-Essen
  • Project Manager: Dr. Philipp Chapkovski, University of Duisburg-Essen
  • Project Officer: Jakob Eicheler, University of Duisburg-Essen
  • Project Officer: Philipp Kemper, University of Duisburg-Essen
  • Expert and Collaborator: Dr. Patrick Clasen, University of Duisburg-Essen
  • Expert and Collaborator: Prof. Dr. Jan Karem Höhne, Leibniz University Hannover & DZHW
  • Expert and Collaborator: Prof. Mark I. Vail, Wake Forest University
  • Expert and Collaborator: Prof. Dr. Markus Tepe, University of Bremen
  • Expert and Collaborator: Dr. Johannes Vüllers, University of Duisburg-Essen
Presentation 21 January Institute for Social Cohesion Bremen
Präsentation Achim Goerres 21.1.22 Forschungsinstitut für Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt

Working Paper on Germany and the US
Goerres Vail National Models of Solidarity and the Covid-19 Crisis_Version20211217

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