Project: How Technological Change Reshapes Politics: Technology, Elections, and Policies

Acronym	TECHNO (Reference Number: 462-19-130)
Project Topic	Technological change and automation are disrupting labor markets in advanced democracies and rekindling fears about technological unemployment and how the future of work will be. While there is little doubt that rapid technological progress has far-reaching economic effects, its political consequences remain largely unexplored. The goal of this project is to study how technological change in the workplace contributes to ongoing deep political transformations (including the surge of populist movements), the adoption of policies to address change, and the political consequences of such policies. The project is organized in four complementary work packages (WP). WP1 examines how workers’ individual economic trajectories and political behaviour change when their industries digitalize. WP2 studies how the introduction of technology affects local-level political and electoral outcomes using rich administrative data. WP3 assesses how technological vulnerability affects citizen preferences for a wide range of policies to respond to technological change. WP4 analyses the successes, failures, and political consequences of existing social policies to reduce individual and regional disparities due to technological change. The project will contribute to understanding how the grievances generated by profound technological change manifest themselves politically. It will result in recommendations of politically viable and effective policies to help workers and communities adapt to a fast-changing economic landscape and increased insecurity about what the future of jobs will be, which ensures a high potential for impact. The project helps understand “The evolving politics of threat” (theme 2 of the call) and the underlying causes of “Shifting identities and representation” (theme 4).
Network	Governance
Call	Democratic Governance in a Turbulent Age

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	Institute for Social Research	Coordinator	Norway
2	University of Oxford	Partner	United Kingdom
3	Barcelona Institute for International Studies	Partner	Spain
4	University of Zürich	Partner	Switzerland