Pirmin Bundi
Biographic Data
| ID | 1179320 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Pirmin Bundi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Pirmin |
| FAMILY NAME | Bundi |
| SIGNATURE | BUNDI P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Lausanne |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5047-072X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 101 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Are Less Affluent People Less Likely to Run for Political Office
In almost all democracies, elected officials are better off than most of the citizens they represent. Recent research has shown that this descriptive misrepresentation is partly due to voter and party bias against less well‐off candidates. In this paper, we explore a third possible explanation: Are less affluent people less likely to run for political office than well‐off people? To answer this question, we draw on original data from two Swiss su…
Conflicting perceptions: Misalignment between citizens’ and politicians’ evaluations of political conflict
This study examines how citizens and politicians evaluate different types of political conflict. Conflicts can be substantive in nature, involving disagreements over policy measures or clashes over core ideological values, or less substantive, concerning strategic relationships between parties. While conflict is inherent to politics, we know little about how different types of conflict are perceived by the public and how this differs from the per…
Making sense of federalism – insights from an open-ended survey question
Too honest and humble to run for office? Citizens’ personality traits, nascent ambition, and recruitment
We explore how honesty-humility and the other HEXACO personality traits relate to citizens’ nascent ambition and their recruitment to run for office. We extend previous work on virtue-related personality traits and political recruitment in two important ways: we go beyond North America and conduct a five-country cross-national study with nationally representative samples. More importantly, going beyond individual-level differences in nascent ambi…
Too honest and humble to run for office? Citizens’ personality traits, nascent ambition, and recruitment – Addendum
Personality and Preferences for Territorial Scales
How do personality traits shape public preferences for territorial governance? While scholars have paid increasing attention to public preferences for multilevel governance, most studies focus on political ideology, trust, or identity—overlooking personality as a potential driver. This paper fills that gap by drawing on 2020–2021 survey data from Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland, and the United States to examine attitudes toward th…
How Politicians (mis)Perceive Policy Salience
Conscientiousness of representatives and agreement with their party positions
Party unity is an important feature in contemporary democracies. Ideological loyalty, disciplinary measures implemented by party leaders and homogeneity of preferences among elected representatives lead them to act in unison. This study focuses on the last mechanism and assesses under which conditions party representatives agree on policy positions. It argues that the personality trait of conscientiousness is linked to how a representative agrees…
The future might be female: How Does the Public Perceive Experts
Recently, scientific experts have become increasingly influential in political decision-making. Although previous research has examined the extent and conditions under which politicians use scientific evidence, we know less about how citizens perceive scientific experts. In this study, we argue that the credibility of experts depends not only on the message they deliver or the medium they use, but also on the individual characteristics of the exp…
Politicians' Theories of Voting Behavior
While political scientists regularly engage in spirited theoretical debates about elections and voting behavior, few have noticed that elected politicians also have theories of elections and voting. Here, we investigate politicians' positions on eight central theoretical debates in the area of elections and voting behavior and compare politicians' theories to those held by ordinary citizens. Using data from face-to-face interviews with nearly one…
A francophone political culture? Similarities and differences among French speakers in Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, and France
This paper explores whether language shapes political culture by examining the case of French and a possible transnational francophone political culture. Using original survey data from Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, and France collected in autumn 2020, we find only small within-country differences between francophones and non-francophones and limited transnational alignment. National patterns dominate even in multilingual federations with divided…
Multilingual federalism in times of crisis
Language has often been associated with the political culture of citizens and certain core values and expectations in multilingual federations. In times of crisis, the existence and extent of cultural characteristics are particularly relevant for multilingual societies, where cultural differences can fuel political conflict as much as similarities can bring people together. To answer whether and how language is associated with different political…
Does anxiety increase policy learning
Does anxiety affect how public officials process policy information? It is often argued that the increasing number of policy failures can be explained by a lack of policy learning by decision makers. While previous studies show that socioeconomic and partisan variables are related to the perception of policy information, little attention has been paid to the role of emotions, such as anxiety, in the policymaking process. In this paper, we investi…
A policy-centred approach to inter-municipal cooperation
This paper demonstrates how policy-specific characteristics affect inter-municipal cooperation. We investigate if a municipality’s cooperation activity in a policy area hinges on whether the policy is considered relevant or politicized by local officials. Using data from two surveys of Swiss local administrators and officials conducted in 2017 that include detailed questions on public service provision, we find that the perceived relevance of a p…
Citizens and Evaluation: A Review of Evaluation Models
Evaluations are considered of key importance for a well-functioning democracy. Against this background, it is vital to assess whether and how evaluation models approach the role of citizens. This paper is the first in presenting a review of citizen involvement in the main evaluation models which are commonly distinguished in the field. We present the results of both a document analysis and an international survey with experts who had a prominent …
Trust, but verify? Understanding citizen attitudes toward evidence‐informed policy making
In this article, we inquire to what extent different manifestations of trust are associated with public support for evidence informed policy making (EIPM). We present the results of a cross‐sectional survey conducted in the peak of the second COVID‐19 wave in six Western democracies: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland, and the United States ( N = 8749). Our findings show that public trust in scientific experts is generally related to…
Evaluation use and learning in public policy
Scientific evidence has become increasingly important for the decision-making processes in contemporary democracies. On the one hand, research dealing with the utilization of scientific knowledge in the political process has pointed out that decision-makers learn from evidence to improve policies to solve problems. On the other, scholars have underlined that actors learn from evidence to support their political interests regardless of how it affe…
Does evaluation quality enhance evaluation use
Background: Evaluations are a useful tool to learn more about the effectiveness of public measures. In the era of evidence-based policymaking, recent research suggests that quality is an important determinant of the utilisation of evaluations. Despite this claim, hardly any empirical study has investigated whether the quality of an evaluation – measured by a meta-evaluation – influences its perceived utilisation by decision makers. Aims and objec…
Economic hardship and social capital in Europe: A comparative analysis of 27 democracies
This article evaluates whether economic hardship affects social capital in Europe. Comparing 27 European countries, it evaluates the impact of personal experiences of economic hardship on engagement in voluntary associations as a cornerstone of civic and democratic life. Empirical analyses of the Eurobarometer data indicate that individual economic hardship has indeed a negative effect on associational volunteering in Europe. However, the result …
Policy evaluation in parliament: Interest groups as catalysts
Members of Parliament (MPs) request policy evaluations and use the resultant findings to inform law-making and hold the government to account. Since most elected representatives have developed strong ties to interest groups, one might wonder whether these privileged relationships influence MPs’ parliamentary behavior. This study investigates how MPs’ affiliations to groups affect their demand for policy evaluations. Empirical evidence shows that,…
Self-Selection and Misreporting in Legislative Surveys
This article discusses the methodological challenges of legislative surveys. Following an overview of different types of survey biases, the article argues that self-selection and misreporting are the most critical problems for legislative surveys. In order to identify the self-selection and misreporting biases, we compare the answers with a survey from Swiss members of parliament with their observed behavior in the parliament. The empirical analy…
Varieties of accountability: How attributes of policy fields shape parliamentary oversight
This article demonstrates how attributes of policy fields shape parliamentary oversight across policy fields. Building on the accountability literature, the study develops the argument that parliamentarians will more likely oversee policy fields where cooperative forms of governance are more present, since these policies are more difficult to assess and have a higher need of legitimation. Using the example of policy evaluation demand by members o…
Between Occupation and Politics: Legislative Professionalization in the Swiss Cantons
In this article, we consider the question of how professionalized the cantonal parliamentarians are and which factors are related to this professionalization. By definition, Swiss parliamentarians exert an occupation in parallel to their mandate. We argue that parliamentarians who spend more time for their mandate have more resources to do so and, more importantly, intend to pursue a political career. In doing so, we analyze data gathered from a …
What Do We Know About the Demand for Evaluation? Insights From the Parliamentary Arena
Research on evaluation has mainly focused on the use of evaluation and has given little attention to the origins of evaluation demand. In this article, I consider the question of why parliamentarians demand evaluations with parliamentary requests. Building on the literature of delegation, I use a principal-agent framework to explain the origins of evaluation demand. In doing so, I argue that the parliamentarians mainly demand evaluations in order…
Self-Selection and Misreporting in Legislative Surveys
This article discusses the methodological challenges of legislative surveys. Following an overview of different types of survey biases, the article argues that self-selection and misreporting are the most critical problems for legislative surveys. In order to identify the self-selection and misreporting biases, we compare the answers with a survey from Swiss members of parliament with their observed behavior in the parliament. The empirical analy…
Evaluation use and learning in public policy
Scientific evidence has become increasingly important for the decision-making processes in contemporary democracies. On the one hand, research dealing with the utilization of scientific knowledge in the political process has pointed out that decision-makers learn from evidence to improve policies to solve problems. On the other, scholars have underlined that actors learn from evidence to support their political interests regardless of how it affe…
Trust, but verify? Understanding citizen attitudes toward evidence‐informed policy making
In this article, we inquire to what extent different manifestations of trust are associated with public support for evidence informed policy making (EIPM). We present the results of a cross‐sectional survey conducted in the peak of the second COVID‐19 wave in six Western democracies: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland, and the United States ( N = 8749). Our findings show that public trust in scientific experts is generally related to…
Does anxiety increase policy learning
Does anxiety affect how public officials process policy information? It is often argued that the increasing number of policy failures can be explained by a lack of policy learning by decision makers. While previous studies show that socioeconomic and partisan variables are related to the perception of policy information, little attention has been paid to the role of emotions, such as anxiety, in the policymaking process. In this paper, we investi…
Policy evaluation in parliament: Interest groups as catalysts
Members of Parliament (MPs) request policy evaluations and use the resultant findings to inform law-making and hold the government to account. Since most elected representatives have developed strong ties to interest groups, one might wonder whether these privileged relationships influence MPs’ parliamentary behavior. This study investigates how MPs’ affiliations to groups affect their demand for policy evaluations. Empirical evidence shows that,…
Politicians' Theories of Voting Behavior
While political scientists regularly engage in spirited theoretical debates about elections and voting behavior, few have noticed that elected politicians also have theories of elections and voting. Here, we investigate politicians' positions on eight central theoretical debates in the area of elections and voting behavior and compare politicians' theories to those held by ordinary citizens. Using data from face-to-face interviews with nearly one…
What Do We Know About the Demand for Evaluation? Insights From the Parliamentary Arena
Research on evaluation has mainly focused on the use of evaluation and has given little attention to the origins of evaluation demand. In this article, I consider the question of why parliamentarians demand evaluations with parliamentary requests. Building on the literature of delegation, I use a principal-agent framework to explain the origins of evaluation demand. In doing so, I argue that the parliamentarians mainly demand evaluations in order…
Between Occupation and Politics: Legislative Professionalization in the Swiss Cantons
In this article, we consider the question of how professionalized the cantonal parliamentarians are and which factors are related to this professionalization. By definition, Swiss parliamentarians exert an occupation in parallel to their mandate. We argue that parliamentarians who spend more time for their mandate have more resources to do so and, more importantly, intend to pursue a political career. In doing so, we analyze data gathered from a …
Varieties of accountability: How attributes of policy fields shape parliamentary oversight
This article demonstrates how attributes of policy fields shape parliamentary oversight across policy fields. Building on the accountability literature, the study develops the argument that parliamentarians will more likely oversee policy fields where cooperative forms of governance are more present, since these policies are more difficult to assess and have a higher need of legitimation. Using the example of policy evaluation demand by members o…
The future might be female: How Does the Public Perceive Experts
Recently, scientific experts have become increasingly influential in political decision-making. Although previous research has examined the extent and conditions under which politicians use scientific evidence, we know less about how citizens perceive scientific experts. In this study, we argue that the credibility of experts depends not only on the message they deliver or the medium they use, but also on the individual characteristics of the exp…
Conscientiousness of representatives and agreement with their party positions
Party unity is an important feature in contemporary democracies. Ideological loyalty, disciplinary measures implemented by party leaders and homogeneity of preferences among elected representatives lead them to act in unison. This study focuses on the last mechanism and assesses under which conditions party representatives agree on policy positions. It argues that the personality trait of conscientiousness is linked to how a representative agrees…
A francophone political culture? Similarities and differences among French speakers in Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, and France
This paper explores whether language shapes political culture by examining the case of French and a possible transnational francophone political culture. Using original survey data from Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, and France collected in autumn 2020, we find only small within-country differences between francophones and non-francophones and limited transnational alignment. National patterns dominate even in multilingual federations with divided…
Multilingual federalism in times of crisis
Language has often been associated with the political culture of citizens and certain core values and expectations in multilingual federations. In times of crisis, the existence and extent of cultural characteristics are particularly relevant for multilingual societies, where cultural differences can fuel political conflict as much as similarities can bring people together. To answer whether and how language is associated with different political…
Does evaluation quality enhance evaluation use
Background: Evaluations are a useful tool to learn more about the effectiveness of public measures. In the era of evidence-based policymaking, recent research suggests that quality is an important determinant of the utilisation of evaluations. Despite this claim, hardly any empirical study has investigated whether the quality of an evaluation – measured by a meta-evaluation – influences its perceived utilisation by decision makers. Aims and objec…
What Do We Know About the Demand for Evaluation? Insights From the Parliamentary Arena
Research on evaluation has mainly focused on the use of evaluation and has given little attention to the origins of evaluation demand. In this article, I consider the question of why parliamentarians demand evaluations with parliamentary requests. Building on the literature of delegation, I use a principal-agent framework to explain the origins of evaluation demand. In doing so, I argue that the parliamentarians mainly demand evaluations in order…
Between Occupation and Politics: Legislative Professionalization in the Swiss Cantons
In this article, we consider the question of how professionalized the cantonal parliamentarians are and which factors are related to this professionalization. By definition, Swiss parliamentarians exert an occupation in parallel to their mandate. We argue that parliamentarians who spend more time for their mandate have more resources to do so and, more importantly, intend to pursue a political career. In doing so, we analyze data gathered from a …
Policy evaluation in parliament: Interest groups as catalysts
Members of Parliament (MPs) request policy evaluations and use the resultant findings to inform law-making and hold the government to account. Since most elected representatives have developed strong ties to interest groups, one might wonder whether these privileged relationships influence MPs’ parliamentary behavior. This study investigates how MPs’ affiliations to groups affect their demand for policy evaluations. Empirical evidence shows that,…
Self-Selection and Misreporting in Legislative Surveys
This article discusses the methodological challenges of legislative surveys. Following an overview of different types of survey biases, the article argues that self-selection and misreporting are the most critical problems for legislative surveys. In order to identify the self-selection and misreporting biases, we compare the answers with a survey from Swiss members of parliament with their observed behavior in the parliament. The empirical analy…
Varieties of accountability: How attributes of policy fields shape parliamentary oversight
This article demonstrates how attributes of policy fields shape parliamentary oversight across policy fields. Building on the accountability literature, the study develops the argument that parliamentarians will more likely oversee policy fields where cooperative forms of governance are more present, since these policies are more difficult to assess and have a higher need of legitimation. Using the example of policy evaluation demand by members o…
Economic hardship and social capital in Europe: A comparative analysis of 27 democracies
This article evaluates whether economic hardship affects social capital in Europe. Comparing 27 European countries, it evaluates the impact of personal experiences of economic hardship on engagement in voluntary associations as a cornerstone of civic and democratic life. Empirical analyses of the Eurobarometer data indicate that individual economic hardship has indeed a negative effect on associational volunteering in Europe. However, the result …
Does evaluation quality enhance evaluation use
Background: Evaluations are a useful tool to learn more about the effectiveness of public measures. In the era of evidence-based policymaking, recent research suggests that quality is an important determinant of the utilisation of evaluations. Despite this claim, hardly any empirical study has investigated whether the quality of an evaluation – measured by a meta-evaluation – influences its perceived utilisation by decision makers. Aims and objec…
Trust, but verify? Understanding citizen attitudes toward evidence‐informed policy making
In this article, we inquire to what extent different manifestations of trust are associated with public support for evidence informed policy making (EIPM). We present the results of a cross‐sectional survey conducted in the peak of the second COVID‐19 wave in six Western democracies: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland, and the United States ( N = 8749). Our findings show that public trust in scientific experts is generally related to…
Evaluation use and learning in public policy
Scientific evidence has become increasingly important for the decision-making processes in contemporary democracies. On the one hand, research dealing with the utilization of scientific knowledge in the political process has pointed out that decision-makers learn from evidence to improve policies to solve problems. On the other, scholars have underlined that actors learn from evidence to support their political interests regardless of how it affe…
A policy-centred approach to inter-municipal cooperation
This paper demonstrates how policy-specific characteristics affect inter-municipal cooperation. We investigate if a municipality’s cooperation activity in a policy area hinges on whether the policy is considered relevant or politicized by local officials. Using data from two surveys of Swiss local administrators and officials conducted in 2017 that include detailed questions on public service provision, we find that the perceived relevance of a p…
Citizens and Evaluation: A Review of Evaluation Models
Evaluations are considered of key importance for a well-functioning democracy. Against this background, it is vital to assess whether and how evaluation models approach the role of citizens. This paper is the first in presenting a review of citizen involvement in the main evaluation models which are commonly distinguished in the field. We present the results of both a document analysis and an international survey with experts who had a prominent …
A francophone political culture? Similarities and differences among French speakers in Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, and France
This paper explores whether language shapes political culture by examining the case of French and a possible transnational francophone political culture. Using original survey data from Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, and France collected in autumn 2020, we find only small within-country differences between francophones and non-francophones and limited transnational alignment. National patterns dominate even in multilingual federations with divided…
Multilingual federalism in times of crisis
Language has often been associated with the political culture of citizens and certain core values and expectations in multilingual federations. In times of crisis, the existence and extent of cultural characteristics are particularly relevant for multilingual societies, where cultural differences can fuel political conflict as much as similarities can bring people together. To answer whether and how language is associated with different political…
Does anxiety increase policy learning
Does anxiety affect how public officials process policy information? It is often argued that the increasing number of policy failures can be explained by a lack of policy learning by decision makers. While previous studies show that socioeconomic and partisan variables are related to the perception of policy information, little attention has been paid to the role of emotions, such as anxiety, in the policymaking process. In this paper, we investi…
Making sense of federalism – insights from an open-ended survey question
Too honest and humble to run for office? Citizens’ personality traits, nascent ambition, and recruitment
We explore how honesty-humility and the other HEXACO personality traits relate to citizens’ nascent ambition and their recruitment to run for office. We extend previous work on virtue-related personality traits and political recruitment in two important ways: we go beyond North America and conduct a five-country cross-national study with nationally representative samples. More importantly, going beyond individual-level differences in nascent ambi…
Too honest and humble to run for office? Citizens’ personality traits, nascent ambition, and recruitment – Addendum
Personality and Preferences for Territorial Scales
How do personality traits shape public preferences for territorial governance? While scholars have paid increasing attention to public preferences for multilevel governance, most studies focus on political ideology, trust, or identity—overlooking personality as a potential driver. This paper fills that gap by drawing on 2020–2021 survey data from Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland, and the United States to examine attitudes toward th…
How Politicians (mis)Perceive Policy Salience
Conscientiousness of representatives and agreement with their party positions
Party unity is an important feature in contemporary democracies. Ideological loyalty, disciplinary measures implemented by party leaders and homogeneity of preferences among elected representatives lead them to act in unison. This study focuses on the last mechanism and assesses under which conditions party representatives agree on policy positions. It argues that the personality trait of conscientiousness is linked to how a representative agrees…
The future might be female: How Does the Public Perceive Experts
Recently, scientific experts have become increasingly influential in political decision-making. Although previous research has examined the extent and conditions under which politicians use scientific evidence, we know less about how citizens perceive scientific experts. In this study, we argue that the credibility of experts depends not only on the message they deliver or the medium they use, but also on the individual characteristics of the exp…
Politicians' Theories of Voting Behavior
While political scientists regularly engage in spirited theoretical debates about elections and voting behavior, few have noticed that elected politicians also have theories of elections and voting. Here, we investigate politicians' positions on eight central theoretical debates in the area of elections and voting behavior and compare politicians' theories to those held by ordinary citizens. Using data from face-to-face interviews with nearly one…
Are Less Affluent People Less Likely to Run for Political Office
In almost all democracies, elected officials are better off than most of the citizens they represent. Recent research has shown that this descriptive misrepresentation is partly due to voter and party bias against less well‐off candidates. In this paper, we explore a third possible explanation: Are less affluent people less likely to run for political office than well‐off people? To answer this question, we draw on original data from two Swiss su…
Conflicting perceptions: Misalignment between citizens’ and politicians’ evaluations of political conflict
This study examines how citizens and politicians evaluate different types of political conflict. Conflicts can be substantive in nature, involving disagreements over policy measures or clashes over core ideological values, or less substantive, concerning strategic relationships between parties. While conflict is inherent to politics, we know little about how different types of conflict are perceived by the public and how this differs from the per…
Political science (18 works) · Law (13 works) · Politics (13 works) · Economics (10 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Public Administration (8 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (8 works)