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Researching problems
of partitioning representation
Starting a research network on understanding and
overcoming the partition paradigm
Hanno Scholtz
1
Abstract: Viewing the history of European civilization as an completed episode
in which Western societies were structured in partitioning groups under
common institutional roofs is a far-reaching and powerful hypothesis. It gives
an explanation for the relative ascent of the West and for a number of current
social problems, and it allows to derive Civil democracy as a institutional
solution proposal for current application. The hypothesis is, however, still to a
large amount under-researched, with a large number of open questions
remaining. This paper presents the hypothesis and the problems that inhibit
researching it, and it gives a first overview over the open questions and
proposes possible research projects to follow.
Contemporary societies face a number of mutu-
ally occurent problems: Examples are (1) the in-
ability to develop coordinated action in face of
global issues (e.g. the lack of agreement on how
to tackle climate change, see (Stocker 2013), or
security questions), (2) contemporary threats to
democratic institutions in Western societies (as
populism and public perception of declining
performance), or (3) institutional failures in
source countries that contribute to large-scale
migration. All three problem complexes have
their specific underlying causes. But their co-oc-
currence may not be random, as all three can be
attributed to partitioning representation as un-
derlying problem. We address this hypothesis
here as “PPR-hypothesis”.
This hypothesis is powerful not only in providing
an argument that may add to understanding
these problems, but even more because it allows
to derive institutional consequences. Research
on the hypothesis and the derived possible insti-
tutional changes is however inhibited by a clas-
sical lock-in situtation: Democracy as we know
it is equated with partitioning representation,
and hence questioning partitioning representa-
tion is equated with questioning democracy.
1
University of Zürich, University of Fribourg (CH), and Zeppelin University. hanno.scholtz@wedecide.ch
This paper is the companion paper to a project
proposal paper (Scholtz 2019b) that tackles the
lock-in from a weak political side. It aims to
sketch a way to overcome it from the scholarly
side, by providing evidence and furthering the
discussion about the PPR-hypothesis and its in-
stitutional consequences in an interdisciplinary
research network.
The paper is divided in three sections. Section 1
describes everything that has happened to far:
The PPR-model and its underlying hypotheses, the
current institutional situation, starting with the
so-called Civil democracy model, the derived con-
sequences of collective decision-making without
partitioning representation, the description of
the lock-in and the attempts to overcome it. Sec-
tion 2 contains the plans for the intended inter-
disciplinary research network, with intended pro-
jects within the network, and planned next steps.
Section 3 contains the original text of a project
proposal submitted to the Swiss national science
foundation (SNF). (Scholtz 2019b) It relates to pro-
ject 11 (“The imagination of actors”) in the project
list of section 2.
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 2
1 The problem: PPR,
Civil democracy,
and the lock-in
1.1 The PPR-model and its
underlying hypotheses
To make the theoretical attribution of the PPR-
hypothesis, one has to provide appropriate under-
lying mechanisms, to argue why they differ between
Western and other societies, to address the ques-
tion why partitioning representation poses a problem
now and not earlier in its long history, and why it
has become the global standard it currently is, de-
spite of its current problems.
We summarize these four points as addressed
in the current literature on the PPR hypothesis
(Scholtz 2018a; Scholtz 2018c; Scholtz 2019c) in
a different sequence, starting with the question
of Western specificity.
Why is the West different?
A working hypothesis is adopted that the co-evo-
lution of a partitioning social structure and in-
stitutions of partitioning representation consti-
tute a (and one may argue, even the) distinctive
feature of European (and later Western, includ-
ing colonial offshoots) social structure from its
very start until the late 20th century. Outside of
Europe, social structure did never have this spe-
cific partitioning form. (Scholtz 2018c)
This hypothesis reframes Weber’s question
about the specificity of Western societies
(Weber [1920] 1988) in a relational and network-
analytic way. The specificity of Europe is not
longer seen to lay in specific values but in spe-
cific network structures. European identity as it
developed with Western Christianity after the
end of the (West-)Roman empire and led to the
specific European history that developed many
of the institutions in which we live today is seen
to rest in a specific network-based model.
Models tell stories about their subjects that
highlight specific relations to allow for action
and problem solving and simplify complications
while highlighting limited aspects of their ob-
jects and acknowledging that these are far more
complex than their representations (Mäki 2004)
and being aware that each model describes only
specific aspects of reality. The model to be con-
structed here is understood as a theoretical
model in Achinstein’s taxonomy (1968): a set of
clearly defined assumptions which allow for the
derivation of important aspects of the object
modeled. (Frigg and Hartmann 2009; Magnagi,
Nersessian and Thagard 1999; Mäki 2004)
They are parts of a deductive reasoning process
in which the confrontation with empirical evi-
dence follows after model construction is com-
plete. A division of labor is pursued in which the
construction of a model and its confrontation
with empirical evidence takes place in different
texts – in this case, were the model has already
been constructed and the current paper dis-
cusses ways for the confrontation with evidence.
The model rests on the social scientific tradition
of describing social facts as institutions, i.e. as
humanly devised changes in the human interac-
tion that create rules to change resulting behav-
ioral equlilbria. (Hindriks and Guala 2015;
Hodgson 2015; North 1990)
The structural core of the model can be described
in an example graph as in Figure 1. It compares
Figure 1: Two types of networks (from (Scholtz 2018c))
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 3
two network structures with equal numbers of
nodes and links, i.e. actors involved and relations
between them. Their structure, however, is very
different: Network 1 shows two clear groups, while
network 2 shows arbitrary connections.
In terms of connection, network 2 is more effi-
cient: All but one pair of actors are connected by
only two or less bridges, while many pairs in net-
work 1 need three bridges to connect. Network 2
is a smaller world. And it is more equal: Although
in both networks there are two actors who have
four instead of three connections (A and E, and
A’ and C’, respectively), the power resources de-
rived from network position (Burt 1992) are
much higher for A and E in model 1, compared to
those of A’ and C’ in network 2.
But what with regards to governance? Network 1
consists of two groups which can interact and
find a roof of common institutions through their
status-higher members. For network 2, either
the whole network will be involved or, if that is
too costly, there will be other ways to secure
some governance structure. Put generally, to
find governing institutions for network 1 will
probably much easier to find than for network 2.
The PPR-model rests on the hypothesis that the
historical western Europe from 331 CE to 1968
corresponded much more to the network 1 type
than other societies of that time and than West-
ern societies today, not to speak of global soci-
ety as a whole, and that a number of historical
facts can be well explained by that difference. In
Europe, institutions developed that made politi-
cal decisions by [i] partitioning individuals into
patrons and agents, [ii] forcing patrons to parti-
tion in their relations to agents and [iii] strictly
regulating when and how patrons were allowed
to adapt these trust relations. (Scholtz 2018c)
Why became partition standard?
Partitioning representation through nation
states, parties, and politicians became the
global de-facto standard because it is techno-
logically unassuming and alternatives were un-
known, and because it worked in the West and
the West deveoped into the global role model for
modernization during the decades of industrial
society. An important side hypothesis is that the
partitioning structure of European societies was
one and possibly even the distinctive reason for
their ascent. (Scholtz 2018c)
Organizations allow to share common resources
and information, and that led to innovation turn-
ing out to be one possible way to be successful
in status competition in the case of territorial
states as organizations. This competition led to
the much steeper trajectory in terms of growth
in knowledge and technologies in Europe com-
pared to the rest of the world.
The advantages of organization in terms of ac-
quiring knowledge and competencies worked
out in other areas, as well. On the level of the
household or, in cities, of crafts and the guilds
as their organization, the connection between
individual and organization allowed for invest-
ment in training, knowledge transmission, joint
knowledge development. And corporations al-
lowed for investments in large entities as e.g.
ships that further fostered the Western ascent.
(Bosker, Buringh and van Zanden 2013; Harris
2009) Every cause that has been discussed as a
subsequent contribution to the rise of the West,
as e.g. trade (Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson
2005) or slavery (Draper 2008), would not have
been able without this ability to form organiza-
tions.
The other historical aspect of partition is that it
made partitioning representation possible.
Groups under common roofs found power equi-
libria non-hierarchical constructions of society.
This started in the the free city-states in Italy
and Germany. Citizens formed groups in city
quarters and later in guilds, allowing for collec-
tive action (Liddy and Haemers 2013) and for
achieving and defending autonomy and self-
governance against military rulers.
In the 20th century, these models of self-govern-
ance were transferred to the level of national so-
cieties in the form of representative democracy
that resulted in new higher levels of equality,
freedom, deliberation, and individual responsi-
bility. The long period of postwar growth after
1945 rested on party affiliations through which
voting citizens felt and in fact were represented
by parties and could accept bargaining compro-
mises that arose in the political process be-
tween them. The tension between the im-
portance of individual participation in collective
decisions to make them equal, deliberative, and
linked to individual responsibility, and the cog-
nitive and temporal limitations to continuous
participation in political matters was resolved
by storing trust in political actors by making one
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 4
mark on a ballot every four years, and this con-
cept worked due to the cultural custom to align
to groups.
Based on this success story, partitioning insti-
tutions became the predominant form of mod-
ern institutions. Over the 20th century, especially
at its beginning, after 1945 and after 1989, West-
ern partitioning institutions have diffused over
the globe. (Meyer et al. 1997; Meyer, Ramirez and
Soysal 1992; Wejnert 2005)
Why did societies lose partition?
Since 1968, affluence-based social change has
led to structurally individualizing Western soci-
eties. It is not yet fully clear why the mecha-
nisms that had maintained the partitioning
structure of Western societies for one and a half
millenia did not longer work. One reason was for
sure the increasing complexity and intercon-
nectedness of industrial societies. Another was
that secularization undermined the religious
base of the mechanisms maintaining it. A third
reason was the severity of the modernization cri-
sis 1914-1945 that produced a clear normative
support for trans-group linkages. And the fact
that media and mobility development made it
impossible for social elites to maintain the mo-
nopoly they once had in maintaining such link-
ages. There may be more reasons, and they have
not yet been combined into a unifying under-
standing.
But regardless of the reasons, Western societies
developed incentives to build group-bridging
linkages (Burt 1992; Granovetter 1973) and trans-
formed from group-based to individualized
(Beck 1983; Beck 1986) and network-oriented
(Castells 1996) societies, away from the parti-
tioning structure that had guided the ascent
and shaped the institutions of the continent.
Why is this a problem?
When institutions of partitioning representation
meet societies that are structurally individualis-
tic, problems may occur: declining legitimacy,
issue neglect, an inefficient information ex-
change between agents B and patrons A, and
even polarization.
Applying partitioning representation in socie-
ties that are not culturally structured in parti-
tioned groups leads (1) to the decreasing legiti-
macy of political decisions. Let us suppose there
are two issue dimensions, a to b and a’ to b’. As
long as there is a group-based social structure
that correlates the two issues as in the left panel
of Figure 1, two parties will serve the groups A
and B, and almost everyone will be happy: Most
voters feel represented, and because they feel
represented, they will be able to accept the infor-
mation “their” parties communicate to them
about the bargaining process.
However, if voters individualize, the large C and
D groups in society will no longer feel repre-
sented by either of the parties. Being unable to
express their real preferences in the voting pro-
cess, they lose contact with the political process,
they will no longer be willing to accept the infor-
mation either of the parties reveal and com-
municate, and they will show signs of (2) declin-
ing trust in political parties, becoming alienated
from and hostile to a political process and polit-
ical elites that no longer represent them.
In trying to avoid such problems, such a struc-
ture may lead parties to (3) neglect topics in order
not to frighten voters: If only the a-b dimension
is discussed prior to an election, party A may
hope to be elected by C voters in addition to their
base group A. The situation is symmetric but if
the issue a’-b’ is discussed by A while B remains
silent on it, A may lose and B may win, so every
party has an incentive not to be open on its po-
sitions.
Paradoxically, an individualized electorate can
even lead to (4) polarization processes, as issues
that are not taken up by parties to retain off-di-
agonal voters make elections less relevant, and
social identity theory (Turner 1987) suggests
that in order to keep motivated the activists they
still need, parties may move to more extreme po-
sitions.
Of course, in the specific form in which they em-
pirically occur in contemporary Western socie-
ties, all these problems have their specific other
underlying reasons, and partitioning represen-
tation may not be the only reasons for any of
them, but it can be hypothesized that it contrib-
utes to any of them.
1.2 Partitioning representation as
institutional lock-in
Luckily, collective decision making institutions
can be re-thought without partitioning repre-
sentation – but not without problems.
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 5
Civil democracy as alternative
As consequence of the PPR-hypothesis, a con-
cept called “Civil democracy” has been devel-
oped that allows for stable and legitimate collec-
tive decisions without forcing partitions.
(Scholtz 2002; Scholtz 2018a; Scholtz 2018b) It
describes non-partitioning collective decision-
making in terms of three characteristics:
Meta-decision freedom replaces partitioning
individuals into patrons and agents [i] above). It
implies the chance for patrons/voting citizens
to decide for every decision whether to make an
own direct-democratic decision or to remain
represented over trust in open actors (OAs), and
their evaluation that becomes the voter’s indi-
rect evaluation. In the case of participation with
an own direct-democratic decision, this indirect
evaluation serves as proposal and cognitive cue,
hence allowing to make more complex decisions
with more than two available options subject of
direct-democratic decision-making.
Actor openness replaces forcing patrons to par-
tition in their relations to agents. It implies the
chance for every agent (political actor) to re-
sponsibly enter decision making and for every
patron (voting citizen) to align to many agents
by dividing their vote in representation.
Actor openness makes use of an important un-
used source of trust and legitimacy. Very much
compared to the ascent of parties in the 19th cen-
tury, the large success story of the late 20th cen-
tury was the ascent of specialized lobby organi-
zations, from traditional economic lobbies over
civil and human rights activsts to environmen-
tal lobby organizations like Greenpeace. Like
parties, these are organizations that make use
of the efficiency advantages every organization
offers for the sake of supporting specific politi-
cal positions. Like parties, they add information
(and, like parties, sometimes desinformation) to
the formation of public opinion. Like (to an ex-
tent that is almost entirely forgotten in current
public discourse) parties in the 19th century, they
have not yet found a fully established position
within the institutions of collective decision
making. The lasting difference to parties is that
they follow a non-partitioning logic.
Flexible trust storage replaces the regulation
[iii] above) in which trust was stored via ballots.
A flexible adaptation can be realized with tradi-
tional technologies, thereby allowing offline ac-
cess points to reduce digital divide, but the prac-
tical core will be digital ICT-based. (In Fig. 2, us-
ing the indirect evaluation as proposal for a di-
rect evaluation (7).)
In principle, Civil democracy is technology-neu-
tral, but practical implementation and applica-
tion questions make it ICT-prone. It needs to
have offline interfaces, but its practical core will
be a digital platform, with the bulk of interaction
via mobile and web interfaces. It can be applied
from the size of small communities up to the
global level. (Scholtz 2017b)
The lock-in
Testing non-partitioning institutions is, how-
ever, not an easy task. They need sactors which
mutually align to them: (i) Non-partitioning po-
litical actors exist as lobby organizations but are
used to having no responsibility. (ii) They might
align their inner structure to serving as open ac-
tors if there would be decisions that make it
worth. (ii) Decisions cannot be made under non-
partitioning institutions as actors responsible
for current decision-making institutions need a
model case to convince their constituencies. (iii)
Figure 2: Flow model of Civil democracy (from (Scholtz 2018a))
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 6
A model case cannot be presented for the lack of
funding. (iv) Funders demand scientifc publica-
tions. (v) Scientific papers are rejected because
for lack of empirical sustance, which would re-
sult from a test. Such mutual interdependencies
block testing non-partitioning institutions. Eve-
ryday language speaks of a vicious cycle; in
terms of institutional theory, partitioning repre-
sentation is a classical lock-in. (Arthur 1989;
North 1990)
Formally speaking, however, lock-ins are just
conventions: In a situation with multiple equilib-
ria, actors have found one equilibrium and stick
to it. (Young 1996) And suboptimal conventions
can be overcome by communication: If all actors
communicate and realize that a new equilibrium
is (possibly after institutionalizing compensa-
tions) be superior for all of them, they can agree
to shift mutually to the new equilibrium.
Social movements bridge the gap between estab-
lished conventions with problems and the change
to new, problem-tackling conventions. They al-
ways start with individual human actors adopt-
ing a common frame on interpreting a social sit-
uation. (della Porta 2006; Smith and Wiest 2012)
In establishing a movement to give Civil democ-
racy a chance to show its capacity to solve prob-
lem, such actors need to be able to imagine the
concept and that actors will be able to meet in
realizing it. Actors necessary for establishing
Civil democracy fall into six different categories:
(1) voting citizens who are willing to assume re-
sponsibility, reflect on their trust structure,
enter it into a counting system, and eventu-
ally review and change their evaluations;
(2) lobby organizations and
(3) individual politicians, both as open actors
who are willing to engage in such a system,
openly and responsibly enter their option
rankings, and bear the responsbility for
these evaluations;
(4) programmers and other providers of sub-
stantial support (“makers”) who are willing
to add to making such a counting system
working and robust against external threats,
(5) financial supporters who are willing to con-
tribute necessary resources.
The willingness of all these categories of actors
depends on their belief in the mechanisms de-
scribed above. Since their story is mainly (net of
scattered evidence collected in (Scholtz 2016)) a
theoretical construction, it needs additional cor-
roborating evidence from different scientific
disciplines,
(6) adding scientific scholars as a sixth cate-
gory of actors, who currently stick to the sta-
tus quo because Civil democracy, still being
unexistent, does not yet create data.
Overcoming the lock-in in politics
Considerations to break this vicious cycle have
recently led to proposing a project that aims to
study and influence the ability of political actors
to imagine Civil democracy and experimentally
adapt to it. (Scholtz 2019b)
Political actors need to be able to imagine one
practical application. Luckily, there may be one
exception to the rule that actors responsible for
current decision-making institutions always de-
fend the status quo. While in most other contexts
current elite actors defend current institutions,
there is a greater openness for change in global
discourse (Bernauer et al. 2016; Jordan et al. 2015)
Additionally, global awareness of climate prob-
lems has created a large and diverse set of lobby
organizations as possible open actors within the
Civil democracy framework. (Betsill 2008; Kuyper
and Backstrand 2016; Rietig 2016)
The proposed project hence studies the imagi-
nation of relevant actors with regards to the pi-
lot case of a “Global Sustainability Council”
(GSC). It is assumed that some individual actors
from politics, science, and public sphere may be
willing to run as candidates for such a Council,
and that, given such candidacies, lobby organi-
zations may be found to support the candidates.
The project parts assesses actor imagination
and the resulting openness to consider and will-
ingness to participate in social action based on
the PPR-hypothesis. Are actors able to under-
stand the hypothesis and the derived possible
contribution of their own action to solving social
problems? Is engaging in social action within
the proposed PPR-framework considered an op-
tion for them? Do they effectively engage? What
arguments are used against and for such social
action?
Individuals and lobby organization representa-
tives will be interviewed: The PPR-hypothesis
and a possible Civil democracy pilot project
(“Global Sustainability Council”) will be pre-
sented to the interviewees and they will be asked
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 7
if or under which circumstances they might be
willing to engage, in their respective roles, in
such a project.
2 Overcoming the lock-in
in science
2.1 Overview
This paper aims to proceed with a second at-
tempt to overcome the lock-in. It starts with the
consideration that the freedom of science offers
some motivations to overcome such lock-ins.
Scientists look for their objects according to var-
ious criteria, including that something is new
and exciting, and that it could help solving so-
cial problems. Researching the problems of par-
titioning representation may fulfill both criteria.
There may hence be a chance that these argu-
ments will persuade scientific actors to partici-
pate in a research network on the PPR-hypothesis
and Civil democracy.
Sections 3 to 6 of this paper describe (in their
current state to different degrees of depth and
completion, from mere questions to project
sketches) a number of possible subprojects.
Grouped into four areas, the list contains four-
teen projects at the moment, which should all be
possible to pursue independently of each other.
For the sake of overview and completeness, the
already submitted project described in the last
subsection is included as P11. All other projects
are new.
All projects should be suitable for taking them
as a basis for cumulative Ph.D. dissertations. The
current author should participate in these dis-
sertations as initiator, content supervisor and
second reviewer. However, other first reviewers
need to be found to take organizational respon-
sibility for them, for reasons including formal
qualification, work load and equal treatment be-
tween the projects.
The main disciplines involved are sociology, po-
litical science and history (6x each), then psy-
chology and area studies (3x each), plus theol-
ogy/church history, economics, mathematics,
Table 1: Project overview
Sequence
Projects
Psychology
History
Sociology
Political science
Area Studies
Theology
Economics
Mathematics
Inform. science
Law
Inernat. Relations
Project space A: Improving understanding
Project 1: Mechanisms of boundary maintainance
x
x
x
3
Project 2: The psychology of partition and organization
x
x
Project space B: Testing the model
6
Project 3: Emergence of Partition, Christianity, Europe
x
x
1
Project 4: The Rise of Europe
x
x
2
Project 5: Western and non-Western network structures
x
x
Project 6: Disappointment of non-Western democracy
x
x
x
x
5
Project 7: Polarization and populism
x
(x)
x
Project space C: Developing non-partitioning institutions
Project 8: Filtering and non-additive trust assignments
x
x
4
Project 9: Security without vote detachment
(x)
x
Project 10: Institutional safeguards
x
x
x
Project space D: Realizing non-partitioning institutions
(0)
Project 11: The imagination of actors
x
x
Project 12: The value horizon of actors
x
(x)
x
(x)
5
Project 13: Nonlocalized global hegemony
(x)
(x)
x
Project 14: Electoral fraud
x
x
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 8
computer science, law and international rela-
tions with one project each. For some of the
main disciplines involved, participation in more
projects is possible.
2.2 Project space A:
Improving understanding
Project 1: Mechanisms of boundary
maintainance
To prevail, partitioning social structure needs
mechanisms that suppresses group-linking re-
lations. The Civil democracy model relates two
aspects of Christian culture to this link suppres-
sion. How did they translate in actual behavior,
where there other mechanisms, and how did
they develop over time?
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within history, sociology, or psy-
chology.
Project 2: The psychology of partition
and organization
Partitioning network structures led to the emer-
gence of competing organizations, but the com-
petiton of organizations has survived the end of
partitioning social structure. What cognitive
mechanisms are responsible for these relations?
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within psychology or sociology.
2.3 Project space B:
Testing the model
Project 3: The Emergence of Partition,
Christianity, and Europe
The Civil democracy model develops hypotheses
about an underlying dynamic of Christianityin
the time of the Church Fathers. From this view,
they provided institutional innovations with
their writings taking effect insofar as they allow
to agree on a partitioning social structure. But to
what extent is this hypthesis corroborated by
the factual writings and historical accounts?
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within history or Christian theol-
ogy in its subdiscipline ecclesiastical history.
Project 4: The Rise of Europe
The rise of Europe in comparison to the rest of
the world, from parity in 1000 to a sixfold percap-
ita income in 1999 (own calulation based on
(Maddison 2010)), has been subject of a vast lit-
erature studying trade, climate (through differ-
ent effect channels), slavery and many other fac-
tors. The Civil democracy model offers an argu-
ment rather early in the chain of effects. How
does it, in detail, comply with historical ac-
counts and evidence?
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within history, especially economic
and social history, in economics or sociology.
Project 5: Western and non-Western
network structures
The Civil democracy model includes the as-
sumption that the specific differences in West-
ern and non-Western network structures it
poses for the past have vanished over the last
century, and for almost as long, globalization
processes have had another transforming and
levelling impact. Global social network services
as Facebook provide however a source of data
that allow to study whether remainders of the
hypothesized network structure may have sur-
vived to this day. On the other hand, historical
network structures are increasing studied in
historical social science and may inform about
real structural differences before 1968.
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within sociology or history.
Project 6: Disappointment of non-
Western democracy
Among the countries ranked as Free in 2017 by
Freedom House, at least two out of three (38 of 57)
have been shaped by Western Christianity. De-
spite the remaining third, democracy has histor-
ically done better in the West than in the rest. The
Civil democracy model hypothesizes an explana-
tion that centers on the relation between social
structure and the technical constraints of elec-
tions. Is this hypothesis corroborated by the dy-
namics that led factual attempts to institutional-
ize democracy in non-Western societies to fail?
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within the respective area studies
(e..g. Middle East studies), history, political sci-
ence, or sociology.
Project 7: Polarization and populism
The Civil democracy model includes mecha-
nisms that link polarization and the growth of
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 9
populist politics since 2000 in a somewhat par-
adox way to partitioning representation under
an increasing individualization and group-dis-
solution in Western societies, and it offers a so-
lution and predicts that it will help reversing the
current negative trends. How do these hypothe-
ses interact with the existing literature on these
problems?
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within political science, sociology,
or history.
2.4 Project space C: Developing
non-partitioning institutions
Project 8: Filtering and non-additive
trust assignments
The texts available for institutionalizing Civil de-
mocracy so far discuss processing trust in the
mathematical counting model mainly in a sim-
ple additive model. Additionally, a multiplicative
‘filtering’ model is briefly discussed in which for
example accounts safe-guarding against cor-
ruption are not added to issue-related trust but
interacts multiplicatively with it, but there are
still a lot of open questions.
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within mathematics or political
science.
Project 9: Security without vote detach-
ment
A digitalized Civil democracy system faces other
security concerns than a traditional election with
vote detachment (i.e. that suspends the connec-
tion between voter and vote). How does the vast
literature on online voting relate to this different
setting? What can be adopted, what has to be re-
thought, where are specific challenges?
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within information science or po-
litical science.
Project 10: Institutional safeguards
Democratic institutions allow the popular ma-
jority to realize its goals. But what if the popular
majority’s goals imply the elimination of democ-
racy, either willingly or implicit, as in the most
recent case of Mohamed Morsi’s election as
Egyptian president in 2012? Some democracies
have institutionalized precautions against self-
damage. Each has its own very specific history,
with Germany’s “well-fortified democracy”
(wehrhafte Demokratie) as the most prominent ex-
ample, but a comprehensive presentation is so
far a research gap. In the consideration about
implementing Civil demcracy, this question has
been addressed and turned into specific pro-
posals for securing against non-sustainable ac-
tors and option proposals. (Scholtz 2019c) What
complimentary information does a broader
analysis provide?
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within Law, political science, his-
tory, or sociology. It has some interaction with
P12.
2.5 Project space D: Realizing
non-partitioning institutions
Project 11: The imagination of actors
Civil democracy is a deviation from the global
status of seeing partitioning representation as
the only way to implement democracy. Sec-
tions 0 above described how many different ac-
tors are necessary even to try it as a new institu-
tional solution. Section 0 already described how
individual political candidates and lobby organ-
izations shall be studied with regards to their
ability to imagine the concept and their willing-
ness to give it a chance. In a project for which
funding has been applied under the Swiss Na-
tional Science Foundation “Spark” funding
scheme. It studies the imagination of relevant
actors with regards to the pilot case of a “Global
Sustainability Council” (GSC), assuming that
some individuals may be willing to run as candi-
dates for such a Council, and that some lobby or-
ganizations may be willing to evaluate candi-
dates.
In the planned project, individuals and lobby or-
ganization representatives will be interviewed
with regards to this pilot project GSC. Beyond the
planned interviews, however, the scope may be
broadened and interviews extended to more, and
more diverse, lobby organizations and to differ-
ent application cases.
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within sociology or political sci-
ence.
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 10
Project 12: The value horizon of actors
Values depend on expectations as acquired over
one’s individual life span. In the history of Eu-
rope over the mid-20th century, this fact had im-
plications. To a large extent, European continen-
tal elites of the 1930s and 1940s were used to
seeing traditional hierarchical values as more
sustainable than modern values that included
democracy, rights and rule of law, competition
and openness, and the breakdown of Germany’s
Weimar republic and the willingness to collabo-
rate in occupied Europe rested on this view.
(Drapac and Pritchard 2015) New generations
and especially the newly forming Christian dem-
ocrats in many post-war countries changed that,
based on the insight that these modern values
were necessary for coping with industrial eco-
nomic development in a stable modern society.
Parallel processes can be hypothesized for con-
temporary non-Western societies: Democracy as
principle is widely accepted, but the fact that
other traditional values with regards e.g. to gen-
der (Inglehart, Norris and Welzel 2002), honor,
religion or historical responsibility stand
against its stable incorporation is less preemi-
nent in contemporary elites’ conception of the
world.
In Islamic countries, the long-standing crisis of
the region and the obvious inability of political
Islamism to bring stability and prosperity to it
may however provide fertile ground for a new,
democratic and modern-value-oriented concep-
tion of political Islam, especially under condi-
tions of potential institutions that do not rely on
the partitioning principle derived from Christian
culture. Can seeds of such an openness be ob-
served?
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within political science, sociology,
Middle East studies, other area studies, or his-
tory.
Project 13: Nonlocalized global hegem-
ony
Contemporary international relations literature
broadly discusses the fact that the United
States are continually losing their role as world
hegemon. The Civil democracy model offers an
alternative model of hegemonial succession, in
which the global leading role is passed to a
global instititional structure based on a shared
culture of responsibility. How does it relate to the
existing literature on nonlocalized hegemony?
What has to be rethought? What are the relative
power resources of both models?
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within international relations, po-
litical science, or sociology.
Project 14: Electoral fraud
Partitioning representation has partnered with
the idea of partitioning sovereignty and pro-
duced national electoral commissions oversee-
ing national elections, while international ob-
servers make their assessments without direct
effect. In contrast, a digitalized Civil democracy
system is necessarily supra-nationally orga-
nized. Possibilities to
How large are the effects of government influ-
ence on electoral commisions? How engrained is
the partitioning logic of national sovereignty in
populations?
The project is expected to qualify as Ph.D. disser-
tation project within political science, econom-
ics, or respective area studies (e.g. African stud-
ies, Middle East studies, Asian studies).
2.6 How to proceed
For pursuing these projects, two different ways
are possible, one teacher-centered and one stu-
dent-centered way.
The first of them would be pursued as follows:
(1) In a pre-project phase, the work essentially
lies with me and must be carried out se-
quentially. I start with projects in which I al-
ready know that there are connection skills
in the literature. The second column in Table
1 contains a sequencing of the first six pro-
jects. It shows a certain concentration in
area B ("Testing"), but I took care to take one
project from each area into this initial phase.
I think it should be possible to start one of
the subprojects every six weeks on average,
with four per semester and all within two
years.
(2) In this order I identify from the literature one
or two colleagues in local proximity (UZH /
ETH / ZHAW / UBE / UBAS / HSG / UKN / ZU),
who might be interested in participating in
the selection, as well as a list of international
(if possible, of course, also very much geo-
graphically close) colleagues, who might be
interested in a participation, and in whose
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 11
discussion the local colleagues hopefully
participate.
(3) I approach my international colleagues and
try to convince them to join the RPPR net-
work and work as a main supervisor of a dis-
sertation on the respective topic.
(4) If main supervisors are found, funding will
be raised for the dissertation project, if pos-
sible including travel costs to meetings of
the doctoral network. At the same time you
can start looking for students.
(5) If it is approved, the project applied for in the
Spark-Call should also strongly push the
practical implementation of the civil-demo-
cratic project, which would then function as
advertising, but of course would also require
my own time resources.
The second, student-centered way would be pur-
sued as follows:
(1) It would start with the announcement of an
interdisciplinary summer school for stu-
dents in or at the end of their master's stud-
ies, which would start with presenting the
topic to the students.
(2) The main object of the summer school would
however be that students choose their own
subproject and within it an exact question.
They themselves would write their own pro-
posal, search and after the summer ask for a
dissertation supervisor.
The decision between these two possible ways
has not yet been made. It may be that they may,
or even should, be merged.
3 The SNF Spark proposal
The following text reproduces a project proposal
submitted to the Swiss national science founda-
tion (SNF) in July, 2019. (Scholtz 2019b) It relates
to project 11 (“The imagination of actors”) in the
project list of section 2. Large textual overlaps
with the preceeding text could not be avoided, but
the cited figure is Figure 2 above.
The proposed project starts from the observa-
tion of currently co-occuring social problems in
world society (e.g. climate change, populism,
large-scale migration) and the hypothesis that
that these problems stem from a common root:
from problems of partitioning representation. ("ppr-
hypothesis")
This hypothesis is based on a stylized specificity
of Western societies. Prior to individualization
and network orientation since the 1970s, these
are viewed as having been structured into parti-
tioned groups under shared institutional roofs.
This organization eased competition and repre-
sentative power equilibria, which are possible
but technically more demanding in a non-parti-
tioning structure.
The global standard of equalizing democratic in-
stitutions with partitioning representation
poses problems as (c1) Western societies are in-
dividualizing, (c2) the supra-national level and
(c3) the non-Western part of the world never had
the partitioning structure the Eurocentric view
assumes as natural, and (c4) confronting parti-
tioning representation with structurally individ-
ualistic societies leads to declining legitimacy,
issue neglect, an inefficient voter-elite infor-
mation exchange, and polarization.
Prevalent social science discourse demands to
prove the validity of the hypothesis before pro-
ceeding to policy proposals. Here, this approach
poses three problems: (1) Partitioning represen-
tation adds to and connects a number of phe-
nomena, but in each of them intermingles with
case-specific mechanisms. (2) Partitioning rep-
resentation is a global standard, problematizing
it is uneasy for lacking variation in the inde-
pendent variable. (3) Some problems related to
partitioning representation are of major im-
portance and require prompt action to develop
solutions. (Backstrand 2006; Lubchenco 1998)
The proposed project follows hence another
logic. Its starting point is an institutionalist view
on partitioning representation as institutional
lock-in and the knowledge that lock-ins can be
overcome by social movements. The proposed
project asks whether a minimum set of actors is
obtainable to start a movement that proposes
political institutions without partitioning repre-
sentation as viable alternative.
The project aims to study the ability of social ac-
tors to imagine a potential validity of the ppr-hy-
pothesis and the possible establishment of non-
partitioning institutions (“Civil democracy”). It
studies relevant actors with regards to a pilot
case, the establishment of a “Global Sustaina-
bility Council” (GSC). After project duration, we
expect to have a theory developed about the
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 12
chances of political actors to give Civil democ-
racy, and more generally of actors to give not-
yet-existing social situations, a chance. Moreo-
ver, we expect 10 individuals and 10 NGOs (with
access to 100’000 supporters) to be willing to
support a pilot project as engaged actors.
3.1 Research plan: Problems of
partitioning representation
and of introducing proposed
solutions
The term partition refers to dividing a group
into mutually exclusive subgroups. (Halmos
1960:28f.)
The term representation describes the relation
in which an actor B acts on behalf of another
actor A, here referring to political representa-
tion where B ranks political decision options
on behalf of A (Urbinati and Warren 2008),
e.g. because A is rationally ignorant. (Downs
1957)
The term hyper problem is used here to de-
scribe a latent problem that influences a
number of apparent problems in the same
way as in statistics a latent variable influ-
ences a number of observable variables.
(Bollen 2002; Borsboom, Mellenbergh and
van Heerden 2003) (‘Latent problem’ alone
refers to unobservedness, not to causality.)
Thesis and research question:
Partitioning representation is an technolog-
ically simple way to organize partitioned so-
cieties.
It however becomes problematic without
partition, i.e. under structural individualiza-
tion.
Relief may result from “Civil democracy”, i.e.
non-partitioning collective decision-making.
(Scholtz 2018a; Scholtz 2018b)
Adopting Civil democracy and even re-
searching the hypotheses demands coordi-
nated change by different actors and their
ability to imagine a yet inexisting social
agreement. How pronounced is this ability?
Current state of research in the field
Research on social movements has shown that
change starts from individuals sharing com-
mon frames (Benford and Snow 2000; Rohlinger
and Gentile 2017; Snow et al. 1986) to see shared
problems under a common diagnostic and ac-
tion perspective. We apply this perspective to a
recently developed perspective on social prob-
lems in contemporary world society.
Contemporary societies face a number of mutu-
ally occurent problems. We concentrate here on
(1) the inability to develop coordinated action in
face of global issues (e.g. the lack of agreement
on how to tackle climate change or security
questions), on (2) contemporary threats to dem-
ocratic institutions in Western societies (as
populism and public perceptions of declining
performance), and on (3) non-Western institu-
tional failures contributing to large-scale migra-
tion. All three problem complexes have specific
underlying causes. But their co-occurrence may
not be random, as all three can be attributed to
partitioning representation as underlying hyper-prob-
lem, a hypothesis addressed as PPR-hypothesis.
To make the theoretical attribution of the PPR-hy-
pothesis, one has (a) to provide appropriate un-
derlying mechanisms, (b) argue why they differ
between Western and other societies, (c) to ad-
dress the question why partitioning representa-
tion, given its long history, poses a problem now
and not earlier, and (d) why, despite of its current
problems, is has become the standard it cur-
rently is.
The previous points are addressed by the cur-
rent literature on the PPR hypothesis as follows:
(b) A working hypothesis is adopted that the co-
evolution of a partitioning social structure
and institutions of partitioning representa-
tion constitute a (and one may argue, even
the) distinctive feature of European (and
later Western, including colonial offshoots)
social structure from its very start in late An-
tiquity until the late 20th century. (Scholtz
2018c) Outside of Europe, partition rarely oc-
curred.
In Europe, institutions developed that made po-
litical decisions by [i] partitioning individuals
into patrons and agents, [ii] forcing patrons to
partition in their relations to agents and [iii]
strictly regulating when and how patrons were
allowed to adapt these trust relations. (Scholtz
2018a; Scholtz 2018c)
(d) Partitioning representation through nation
states, parties, and politicians became the
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 13
global de-facto standard
2
because it is tech-
nologically unassuming, it worked in the
West, the global role model for moderniza-
tion during the decades of industrial society,
and alternatives were unknown. An im-
portant side hypothesis is that the partition-
ing structure of European societies was a
(and again one may argue, even the) distinc-
tive reason for their ascent. (Scholtz 2018c)
(c) Affluence-based social change (Beck 1983;
Beck 1986; Granovetter 1973) has led to net-
work-oriented (Castells 1996) and structur-
ally individualizing Western societies
(Scholtz 2018c) in which new conflict lines
supplant traditional cleavages. (Kriesi 1998)
(a) When institutions of partitioning represen-
tation meet societies that are structurally
individualistic, problems may occur: declin-
ing legitimacy, issue neglect, an inefficient
information exchange between agents B and
patrons A, and even polarization. (Scholtz
2017a) Of course, in the specific form in
which they empirically occur in contempo-
rary Western societies, all these problems
have their specific other underlying reasons,
and partitioning representation may not be
the only reasons for any of them, but it can
be hypothesized that it contributes to any of
them. (Scholtz 2018a)
Collective decision making institutions can
however be re-thought without partitioning rep-
resentation. As consequence of the PPR-hypothe-
sis, a concept called “Civil democracy” has been
developed that allows for stable and legitimate
collective decisions without forcing partitions.
(Scholtz 2002; Scholtz 2018a; Scholtz 2018b)
It describes non-partitioning collective deci-
sion-making in terms of three characteristics:
Meta-decision freedom replaces partitioning
individuals into patrons and agents [i]
above). It implies the chance for pa-
trons/voting citizens to decide for every de-
cision whether to make an own direct-demo-
cratic decision (arrows (2) in Fig. [2 above])
or to remain represented over trust (4) in
open actors (OAs), and their evaluation (5)
that becomes the voter’s indirect (6) evalua-
tion.
2
Switzerland is partly an exception from the
standard of partitioning representation, as split
Actor openness replaces forcing patrons to
partition in their relations to agents [ii]
above). It implies the chance for every agent
(political actor) to responsibly enter deci-
sion making and for every patron (voting cit-
izen) to align to many agents by dividing
their vote in representation. (In Fig. [2], trust
in political actors (4) goes to multiple actors
at a time.)
Flexible trust storage replaces the regulation
[iii] above) in which trust was stored via bal-
lots. A flexible adaptation can be realized
with traditional technologies, thereby allow-
ing offline access points to reduce digital di-
vide, but the practical core will be digital ICT-
based. (In Fig. [2], using the indirect evalua-
tion as proposal for a direct evaluation (7)
This model can be applied from the size of small
communities up to the global level. (Scholtz
2017b)
Testing non-partitioning institutions is, how-
ever, not an easy task. Applying Civil democracy
demands actors which mutually align to it: (i)
Non-partitioning political actors exist as lobby
organizations/NGOs but are used, and have their
own internal structure aligned, to having no re-
sponsibility.
(ii) They would align their structure to serving as
open actors only for decisions that make it
worth. (iiI) Decisions cannot be made under non-
partitioning institutions as actors responsible
for current decision-making institutions need a
model case to convince their constituencies. (iv)
A model case cannot be presented for the lack of
funding. (v) Funders demand scientifc publica-
tions. (vi) Scientific papers are rejected because
for lack of empirical sustance, which would re-
sult from a test. Such mutual interdependencies
block testing non-partitioning institutions. Eve-
ryday language speaks of a vicious cycle; in
terms of institutional theory, partitioning repre-
sentation is a classical lock-in. (Arthur 1989;
North 1990)
Formally speaking, however, lock-ins are just
conventions: In a situation with multiple equi-
libria, actors have found one equilibrium and
stick to it. (Young 1996) And suboptimal conven-
tions can be overcome by communication: If all
voting (kumulieren/panaschieren) and direct de-
mocracy reduce both partitioning aspects. Non-
partitioning political actors are, however, like-
wise excluded from formal decision-making.
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 14
actors communicate and realize that a new
equilibrium is (possibly after institutionalizing
compensations) be superior for all of them, they
can agree to shift mutually to the new equilib-
rium.
Social movements bridge the gap between es-
tablished conventions with problems and the
change to new, problem-tackling conventions.
They always start with individual human actors
adopting a common frame on interpreting a so-
cial situation. (della Porta 2006; Smith and
Wiest 2012)
In establishing a movement to give Civil democ-
racy a chance to show its capacity to solve prob-
lem, such actors need to be able to imagine the
concept and that actors will be able to meet in
realizing it. Actors necessary for establishing
Civil democracy fall into different categories:
(1) Open actors in the two categories of both or-
ganizations (lobby organizations/NGOs and
parties)
(2) and individual politicians, both who are willing
to engage in such a system, openly and re-
sponsibly enter their option rankings, and
bear the responsbility for these evaluations;
(3) voting citizens who are willing to assume their
own responsibility, reflect on their trust
structure, enter it into a counting system,
and eventually review and change their eval-
uations;
(4) programmers and other providers of sub-
stantial support (“makers”) who are willing
to add to making such a counting system
working and robust against external threats,
(5) providers of financial support who are willing
to contribute necessary resources,
(6) and scientific scholars who currently stick to
the status quo because a possible Civil de-
mocracy setting, still being unexistent, does
not yet create data.
The willingness of all these categories of actors
to give the Civil democracy alternative to parti-
tioning representation a chance depends on
their belief in the mechanisms described above.
The idea of the project proposal stems from con-
siderations to break this vicious cycle.
In previous talks with actors from these catego-
ries, we have learned that they need to be able to
imagine one practical application, and there
seems to be one exception to the rule (iii above)
that actors responsible for current decision-
making institutions always defend the status
quo. While in most other contexts elites identify
with current institutions, openness for change
is greater in global climate discourse (Bernauer
et al. 2016; Jordan et al. 2015) Additionally, global
awareness of climate problems has created a
large and diverse set of possible OAs (Betsill
2008; Kuyper and Backstrand 2016; Rietig 2016)
and there is about equal implementation cost
for a demonstration system for all applications
while visibility and cost-efficiency scale with ap-
plication size. We hence study the imagination
of relevant actors with regards to the pilot case
of a “Global Sustainability Council” (GSC).
We assume that it will be possible to find indi-
vidual actors willing to run for a GSC.
Meta-decision freedom implies that such a
council will only prepare decisions to be made by
world citizens and their trusted actors. Through
agenda setting and the symbolic representation
of world society, it will however still be powerful
and “a decision making it worth” for NGOs. (ii
above)
After candidates are found and NGOs are willing
to assume a role as competing political actors in
giving world citizens a voice, we assume that in-
novators (in the sense of innovation diffusion
studies (Rogers [1962] 5. ed. 2005)) from actor
categories (3) to (6) can be found to start the
movement. If possible, we will have a look on
them during the current project, but the planned
procedure focuses on categories (1) and (2).
Project description
The proposed project studies the ability of social
actors to imagine establishing non-partinioning
decision-making as problem-solving, based on
the PPR-hypothesis as stylized history of political
institutions.
Goals
The project aims to assess actor imagination
and the resulting openness to consider and will-
ingness to participate in social action based on
the PPR-hypothesis, concentrating on lobby or-
ganizations as non-partitioning political actors
and individual GSC candidates. (I) How do actors
understand Civil democracy, the underlying hy-
potheses and the derived possible contribution
of their own action? (II) How much scientific
proof do they demand? (III) Is engaging in Civil
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 15
democracy considered an option for them? (IV)
What arguments are used against and for such
action? (V) Do they effectively engage? (VI) How
do arguments and effective action relate to pre-
dictor variables as strategies used before, and to
external variables (e.g. problem development,
public attention on the project, behavior of other
actors)?
Methodology
Based on systematically approaching social ac-
tors, a number of interviews will be made. Based
on already existing texts aimed for the non-sci-
entific public (Scholtz 2019a), the GSC project in-
cluding the underlying PPR-hypothesis will be
turned into text and video presentations. The ap-
plicant(s) and their team will use their existing
network, and expand it using this new material,
to get access to interviewees.
With established contacts, questions to goals (I)
to (IV) above will asked in semi-structured inter-
views (Bogner 2014; Denzin 2011; Lamnek 2016).
Additionally, goals (II) to (V) above will be turned
into coded variables (like “How high (from 0% to
100%) does the respondent assess the probabil-
ity that lacking scientific proof for the PPR-hy-
pothesis will be used as argument against en-
gaging in Civil democracy by other members of
their organization?”). To reduce travel expenses
and environmental impact, interviews will partly
be made via (if possible, video-supported) te-
lephony or in written form.
Approach
From the set of possible actor categories, we
concentrate on candidates and organizations.
We will make 20 interviews with possible candi-
dates for such a council: Established politicians,
publicists from old and new media, or scientists,
with a demonstrated interest and a public pro-
file in furthering policy changes towards more
environmental sustainability. As well, we will
make 20 interviews with representatives of or-
ganizations who might serve as OAs.
The preparatory process and the interviews will
be documented for further analysis.
Expected outcomes
Following a qualitative approach, we expect to
win enough material that allows to develop a
first theory about the chances of political actors
to give Civil democracy, and more generally of
actors to give not-yet-existing social situations,
a chance. We expect to determine profiles allow-
ing to synthetically represent answering types
on a trust-mistrust dimension as relevant as in
other contexts. (Bornschier 2001; Citrin and
Stoker 2018; Williamson and Bigman 2018) Both
argumentation and actor behavior are expected
to depend on actor situations, e.g. with openness
declining with age and investment in other
strategies.
With regards to practical proceeding, we expect
that after the project 10 individuals and 10 NGOs
with access to (in sum) 100’000 supporters will
be willing to support a GSC pilot project.
Possible outlets for publication include political
science journals with an interest in social move-
ments. (e.g. IPSR, APSR, AJPS, New PS, BritJPS, J
Politics)
Risks and gains
Risks: For the case of negative outcomes, i.e. an
ignorance of non-partitioning institutions by in-
teresting actors, there may be not enough inter-
viewees. In this case, the reactions of inquired
actors will be monitored and their behavior with
regards to interview inquires analyzed. Within
the interviews, a negative outcome may simply
result from insufficient presentation. If avoid-
ance strategies through optimizing presenta-
tion do not suffice, at least the intense discus-
sion of the hypothesis will inform future study.
In the positive case, i.e. if imaginative actors start
a social movement and a global civil-democratic
structure is established, it may not contain itself
to questions of environmental sustainability, and
this may result in a political risk. The European
first incomplete transformation to modernity 1914-
1949 yielded the seducibility of populations unac-
customed to democratic responsibility to attrib-
ute crisis phenomena of modernization to scape-
goats and to take action against them in a finally
genocidal climax – a phenomenon that has been
attributed to democracy (Horkheimer and Adorno
[1944] 2013; Mann 2005) but is more a transitory
phenomenon linked to democratization
(Mansfield and Snyder 1995; Mansfield and Snyder
2005), although the mechanism does not realize
uniformly. (Narang and Nelson 2009) E.g., given
their prevalent anti-semitic discourse, effective
popular decision making in contemporary Muslim
populations yields effective risk for Israel and its
population; comparable risk assessments are
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 16
possible for other longstanding conflicts. These
conflicts are fueled by institutional partition, and
in the long run their mitigation can be expected,
but in the short run a risk results. Communica-
tively, it is tackled by anchoring Civil democracy in
the adequate master frame (Benford and Snow
2000) of sustainability and an openness to change
and to accepting responsibility and the necessity
of inclusive institutions. Institutionally, it is tack-
led by including into Civil democracy bodies to
judge the social sustainability of actors and deci-
sion options; these are elected only by those world
citizens whose societies already have the experi-
ence of democratic responsibility for a substantial
amount of time. (Scholtz 2019c)
Gains: For the case of negative outcomes, the
ambitious PPR-hypothesis and its evaluation by
relevant ators has found an intense discussion
that will inform future study.
For the case of a positive outcome and subse-
quent further corroboration of the PPR-hypothesis,
Civil democracy offers a chance for overcoming
the burden of implicit Eurocentrism on institu-
tionalizing democratic responsibility in non-
Western societies and on the supra-national and
global level and maintaining and re-institutional-
izing it in individualizing Western societies. As
better institutions solve problems, reduce con-
flict and have economic impact (Acemoglu,
Johnson and Robinson 2002; Hall and Jones 1999;
Ketterer and Rodriguez-Pose 2018; Knack and
Keefer 1995; Rodrik, Subramanian and Trebbi
2004), this may lead to better problem solutions,
decreases in conflicts and global GDP increases.
For reasons named above (Fn. 1), Switzerland will
probably be late, if ever, in applying Civil democ-
racy in national politics, but as country identified
with methodical efficiency, diplomacy, discre-
tion, internationalism, trustworthiness (Anholt
1998) and direct democracy, it would be a good
venue for such a project, and as a national society
and scientific community benefit from hosting it.
Contents
1 The problem: PPR, Civil democracy, and the
lock-in
1.1 The PPR-model and its
underlying hypotheses
1.2 Partitioning representation as institutional
lock-in
2 Overcoming the lock-in in science
2.1 Overview
2.2 Project space A: Improving understanding
Project 1: Mechanisms of boundary
maintainance
Project 2: The psychology of partition and
organization
2.3 Project space B: Testing the model
Project 3: The Emergence of Partition,
Christianity, and Europe
Project 4: The Rise of Europe
Project 5: Western and non-Western network
structures
Project 6: Disappointment of non-Western
democracy
Project 7: Polarization and populism
2.4 Project space C: Developing non-
partitioning institutions
Project 8: Filtering and non-additive trust
assignments
Project 9: Security without vote detachment
Project 10: Institutional safeguards
2.5 Project space D: Realizing non-partitioning
institutions
Project 11: The imagination of actors
Project 12: The value horizon of actors
Project 13: Nonlocalized global hegemony
Project 14: Electoral fraud
2.6 How to proceed
3 The SNF Spark proposal
3.1 Research plan: Problems of partitioning
representation and of
introducing proposed solutions
Scholtz: Researching problems of partitioning representation 17
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