The political impact of AI in political behaviour: Elections, voters and information

Abstract

This panel explores how the diffusion of artificial intelligence across electoral and informational ecosystems is transforming the meaning and practice of democratic agency in political systems. It aims at bringing together work that views AI simultaneously as an instrument of rule, an infrastructure of surveillance and persuasion, a tool of citizen empowerment, and a potential political actor in its own right. This panels ask how far AI-enabled systems recalibrate who participates in politics, how preferences are shaped, and what still grounds the legitimacy of collective decisions in an age of pervasive algorithmic mediation. By integrating empirical, theoretical, and behavioural perspectives, the panel aims at studying AI as a core dimension of contemporary transformations of democracy rather than as a purely technical add-on. It conceptualises AI not only as a regulatory problem but as a constitutive force that reshapes electoral competition, public spheres, and the distribution of voice within political communities. The panel thus invites dialogue between scholars of comparative politics, political communication, and democratic theory on how democratic agency can be understood, protected, and potentially reinvented in AI-saturated political orders.

Title	Details
Digitization and AI in Mass Surveillance and Mind Manipulation	View Paper Details
“Hey ChatGPT, Should I Vote or Abstain?” How the Use of Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Gemini Can Boost Voter Turnout	View Paper Details
The Power of Conversation: A Survey Experiment on AI-Generated Information and Political Behaviour	View Paper Details
The Artificial Voter: Democratic Legitimacy and the Conditions for Algorithmic Enfranchisement	View Paper Details
AI, Conditioned Uncertainty, and the Functions of Elections in Hybrid Regimes	View Paper Details