Maria Jimena Sanhueza

The growing discontent of citizens, electoral shifts, numerous efforts of politicians and institutions to involve citizens prove that the Belgian sui-generis democracy is facing a democratic deficit. I participate to this academic debate, in an effort to study citizens’ opinion on representative and democratic actors.

Using mixed methods, which include surveys, participant observation and text analysis I observe what Belgian citizens express about institutions, democracy and politicians in their country. 

There are several objectives for my research project. Firstly, to identify groups of people within the citizenry that share positive and negative judgements. Secondly, to identify patterns of groups and who they refer to. Which is related to my third objective, to understand who and why is being the object of positive and negative comments.