X Workshop (UB 2024)

Underlying that individuals can hold an outlook that pits the people against the elite, scholars following the ideational approach to populism have spilled much ink on populist attitudes research. However, such development did not come without its eventual challenges, as the anti-elitist aspect of populist attitudes began to be measured invariably with items that confine the meaning of the elite. This could render a validity problem, given that specific references to the elite may distort its functioning as an empty signifier in the populist slant for certain groups. Namely, if the elite is referred to as government or elected officials, this could generate bias for incumbent supporters. To test this, we utilized an in-scale wording change between two waves of panel data from Croatia, rephrasing anti-elitism items from government-framed to abstract-shaped. In line with our reasoning, results show that original scales induce bias for pro-incumbents and that abstracting the scale negates such an effect. Given that almost all comparatively used populist attitudes scales constrict the meaning of elite, the results suggest that much work is still needed in crafting populist attitudes items.

Sex and gender inequalities in health have traditionally been approached by biological, methodological and social explanations. However, less attention has been given to the role of health systems in contributing to and generating these differences.  Clearly, to the extent that the professionals and researchers working in health systems hold gender and sex biases, part of the documented sex and gender health inequalities might be attributable to them. Ultimately, the channels through which these biases might be translated into observable inequalities take the form of, among others, delays in diagnoses, tests, screening and treatment, misdiagnoses, failed continuity of care, no follow-up procedures, etc., all of which will have an important and lasting impact on people's health outcomes and long-term care needs. 

Our study uses clinical simulations performed by medicine students and healthcare providers to identify and quantify gender and sex biases in the different tasks involved in the clinical management of a patient: assessment of symptoms; monitoring; tests and diagnostic procedures; initial and main diagnosis; treatment administration; assessment of patient progress, response, and final status; and communication with the patient. The stage of the academic and professional trajectory in which these biases originate and their evolution over the years of studying and training will also be analyzed and identified, filling an important gap in the literature.

Climate change is a worldwide problem that requires an individual as well as a coordinated solution. The EU, as a supra-national institution, can play a crucial role in tackling the causes and consequences of the climate crisis. We take advantage of the “More in 24” campaign, which aims to educate young voters about the EU and make institutional language more accessible, fun, and engaging, as well as raising awareness to increase youth turnout and conduct a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT). We aim to study whether political (civic) education can positively affect high-school students’ attitudes towards the EU, and whether encouraging them to think about cross-country coordination makes them more likely to support a globally coordinated response led by the EU. The target population of the Civic Education programme utilised in this study comprises young teenagers, allowing us to test the effects on minds that may not be highly politicised. The overall objective of the RCT is to track students’ opinion formation around the issues of climate change when a) they received a session on climate change compared to when they do not receive one and b) when they consider a climate change policy that requires cross-country coordination compared to when they consider a climate change policy through national lenses. Preliminary results show how participating in the Workshop did have an effect on attitudes towards and knowledge of the EU. Our project aims to contribute to our understanding of the effects of Citizenship Education programmes and tackles a very current question: the crisis of climate change and how the EU project can help mitigate it while increasing its support base.

The study of Judicial Independence (JI) is pivotal in empirical legal research, as it is considered an essential condition for the separation of powers and the rule of law. However, existing research predominantly focuses on the JI of the judiciary and higher courts, overlooking the independence of individual judges in lower courts.

Bridging this gap will contribute to understanding how practices, culture, and strategies generate judicial outcomes beyond formal incentives (Dyevre, 2010; Pozas-Loyo & Ríos-Figueroa, 2022), aspects often neglected in constitutional design. Understanding which norms and practices all together enhance or restrict JI (Kosař, 2016; Spáč et al., 2018), the opposite JI outcomes of identical rules in different countries (Urbániková & Šipulová, 2018), and the failure of judicial reforms due to actors' adaptability or informal institutions (Helmke & Levitsky, 2004; Pozas-Loyo & Ríos-Figueroa, 2022), will increase the chances of having a judiciary balanced in independence and accountability.

These complexities suit the Chilean case, where constitutional reforms to the judicial government have been recently discussed without a clear consensus. With a hierarchical design typical of authoritarian regimes (Bordalí, 2013), Chile provides an excellent case study, with both de jure and de facto dimensions setting a scenario of strong constraints to judges' decision-making (Hilbink, 2007). Academics, political actors, and the Supreme Court (at least in the media) share the idea of stripping higher court judges of their judicial governance powers. To Couso and Hilbink (2011), these attributes explain the difference between the Chilean judiciary and its counterparts in Latin America: conservatism and a deficient defense of citizens' rights. The paper will set the foundations for a study within this framework and outlines the methodological specifics of the research.

To address JI in Chile, the project aims to build a strategic model suitable for understanding actors with conflicting interests and interdependent choices, such as judges' of different hierarchies, capturing their interaction and incentives when adjudicating, considering variables such as tenure, stability, and ideologyThis approach has been used in Latin America to study judges' responses to the political landscape (Helmke & Staton, 2011; Rodríguez-Raga, 2011), pendent exploring the JI interactions within a judiciary.