Research

The origins of the project

A few years ago, a mathematician visited our faculty to present his voting system at an event attended mostly by political scientists. The discussion that followed revealed not only surprising resistance but also criticism of features that are common to many other voting methods, which struck me as particularly unfair. I even heard someone say that no mathematician would tell us how to vote. That moment stayed with me and sparked my interest in researching alternative voting methods.

Our work

At the Election Research unit at the Institute H21, we study electoral systems from a comparative perspective, with a particular focus on the D21 voting method. Our analytical framework draws on social choice theory, proportionality and representativeness, as well as electoral integrity. We work with data from public sources, surveys, and simulation-based analyses.

The origins of the project

When I joined Institute H21, I engaged in long discussions with the then director, Adam Růžička, together with Jan Hořeňovský and later other colleagues, and we began to integrate our perspectives in an effort to explore the deeper challenges facing modern democracy. I brought perspectives from political science and its limitations, while Adam, as a cognitive scientist, offered insights into individual behaviour and decision-making. By combining our viewpoints, we created an exciting project that examines the underlying issues democracy must address to remain resilient and meaningful.

Our work

We have been developing a theoretical framework, drawing heavily on the work of John Vervaeke, that identifies what we call the Hamlet’s problem of democracy: the tension between constant critical openness and the need for stable shared frames. This tension stems from the cognitive limitations of individual agents, who struggle to create frameworks that determine what is relevant and stabilise meaning in an increasingly complex world. Until recently, our work was largely theoretical. With the integration of survey data, we are now moving into the phase of empirically testing our hypotheses.