Contacts: Dr. Jonas Fegert & Jasper Büll
Project Partner: Princeton University
Funded by: Baden-Württemberg Stiftung
Duration of the Project: 01.06.2026 – 31.05.2029
TACIT is a collaborative project between the FZI Research Center for Information Technology and Princeton University. Building on the SOSEC project, this research initiative examines how social and political engagement influences democratic attitudes and processes. As part of this transatlantic collaboration, the project partners jointly collect and analyze data from three different sources in Germany and the United States.
The project is funded by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation as part of its initiative for international research excellence. Dr. Jonas Fegert is leading the project. On the Princeton side, Prof. Dr. Jacob Shapiro is leading the project.
On both sides of the Atlantic, there is a growing concern about the state of democratic systems. The transformation of political landscapes and public debates is repeatedly linked to changing forms of political engagement. On the one hand, researchers have long observed an erosion of inclusive social institutions. On the other hand, the proliferation of digital communication platforms is giving rise to new forms of political engagement in the digital sphere. Citizens perceive digital public spheres in particular as increasingly polarized and emotionally charged.
Against this backdrop, it is often assumed that strengthening traditional forms of civic engagement can promote democratic processes. However, historical and contemporary research shows that anti-democratic actors can also exploit institutions of civic engagement as a resource for spreading their ideas.
So far, however, little is known about the conditions under which social and political engagement strengthens democratic processes and when it can have the opposite effect. This is precisely where TACIT comes in, by capturing various forms of social and political engagement and embedding them in geographical, political, social, and temporal contexts. How does engagement change following major political events, during times of crisis, or in the wake of disasters? In which contexts does civic engagement strengthen democratic processes, and in which contexts does it not?
TACIT is built on three pillars—three key data sources that it combines.
Combining these three data sources provides a comprehensive picture of societal developments. This allows real-world events to be correlated with online activities and detailed survey data. The goal is to gain a better understanding of the conditions under which civic engagement strengthens or weakens democratic processes.
The analysis is conducted in close collaboration between researchers at the FZI and Princeton. This collaboration is institutionally secured for the long term through the integration of the three data sources into Princeton’s Data Accelerator Initiative. Through the Data Accelerator, Princeton consolidates digital research methods and data sources to make them accessible to researchers.
“The decisive question is not whether, but when civic involvement strengthens democracy. The same associational structure, the same online mobilization can build institutional trust or erode it, depending on the political contexts and lines of conflict in which it is embedded. As long as we do not understand these conditions, a central mechanism of democratic resilience remains a black box.”
Dr. Jonas Fegert, Leiter des House of Participation am FZI
“One of the great challenges in understanding when civic engagement strengthens democracy is being able to cut through the complex chains of feedback between citizens’ experiences with their government and what they do in their community. Combining the remarkable SOSEC panel with long-run digital trace data gives us the opportunity to learn from those rare random events that unexpectedly impact civic engagement, thereby giving us a unique window into its impact.”
Professor Jacob N. Shapiro, John Foster Dulles Professor in International Affairs, Princeton University
Contacts: Dr. Jonas Fegert & Jasper Büll
Project Partner: Princeton University
Funded by: Baden-Württemberg Stiftung