The EDGE project – Enhancing Democratic Support under Conditions of Geographic and Intersectional Inequalities in Europe – is a three-year Horizon Europe research project co-led by Professor Sofia Vasiliopoulou at King’s College London and Professor Alexia Katsanidou of the Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. Bringing together researchers and partners from 10 institutions across eight European countries, the project examines how economic and social inequalities affect support for democracy, and what can be done to strengthen democratic resilience.
Across Europe, democratic systems are facing growing pressures, including declining trust, political polarisation and challenges to democratic norms. EDGE seeks to understand how experiences of inequality may contribute to these pressures, and how societies can respond.
The project examines both objective inequalities, such as differences in income and economic circumstances, and people's subjective experiences of inequality and fairness. It also considers how these experiences interact with geography and different aspects of people's social identities. This allows researchers to explore why similar economic pressures can produce very different political responses in different communities.
A particular concern is the relationship between inequality and democratic backsliding. Economic and social grievances can generate demands for greater political accountability, but they can also create opportunities for political movements that challenge democratic institutions or exploit resentment towards elites and perceived out-groups. Understanding these different pathways is essential to identifying ways of strengthening democratic support.
EDGE uses a combination of research methods to explore these relationships, bringing together quantitative research, survey experiments, media analysis, geographical data and participatory approaches. This enables researchers to examine both the structural conditions in which people live and how those conditions are experienced and interpreted by citizens.
The project's focus on geography and intersectionality is particularly important. Inequality is not experienced in the same way everywhere, and people's political attitudes are shaped by the interaction between economic circumstances, place and social identity. Understanding these differences can help policymakers develop responses that address the underlying causes of political dissatisfaction rather than simply its symptoms.
This makes EDGE a strong expression of the Secure Futures vision of King’s Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy. Secure Futures recognises that the resilience of societies depends not only on their ability to respond to immediate threats, but also on whether people feel that they have a meaningful stake in their institutions and their future.
EDGE demonstrates how social science can contribute to that resilience. By connecting inequality, political attitudes and democratic institutions, it examines some of the underlying conditions that can make societies more vulnerable to polarisation and democratic erosion. Importantly, its ambition is not simply to diagnose these problems, but to identify interventions that can strengthen democratic support.
EDGE demonstrates how rigorous social science can help strengthen the foundations of democratic resilience and contribute to a future that is more equal, inclusive and secure.