In the new article ‘Research on democracies needs an infrastructure for political texts’ Hajo Boomgaarden (OPTED project coordinator) and Fabienne Lind (OPTED project manager) discuss, why building a European research infrastructure for political text analysis is crucial to improve research on democracies and democratic processes.

The article highlights how the OPTED infrastructure can facilitate the systematic analysis of political texts in the face of democratic backsliding. A key aspect is the provision of open data for evidence-based policy making. OPTED thereby urges political actors -but also commercial institutions- to ensure access to politically relevant text in analysable formats.

The OPTED infrastructure works on text inventories, open access tools and learning materials that are not only of use for social scientists, but prepared also for the broader public, journalists, and policy makers. The development of online tools and training materials aim to support the effective use of text analysis by the non-academic community.

You can read the full article here (on pages 312-313).