Democratic Innovations beyond Deliberation

Abstract

Current debates on democratic innovations are dominated by the paradigm of deliberative democracy. There exists a vast literature on deliberative mini-publics designed in ways that facilitate open-minded, rational argumentation. While there may be occasions where deliberative mini-publics are useful, they might not be suitable to tackle some of the most urgent challenges of contemporary democracies, such as deficits of representation or increasing inequalities. Deliberative mini-publics have been criticized on the basis that they seldom improve political processes on a larger scale. They only involve a small number of citizens, and decision-making bodies are usually free to cherry pick from their recommendations. The panel builds on this diagnosis and explores possibilities of theorising and designing democratic innovations beyond the paradigm of deliberative democracy. Questions that papers might address include but are not limited to the following: What resources offer political theories that focus on other concepts than deliberation, such as agonistic democratic theories and political theories of distinct political spaces like the city, for theorising democratic innovations? How would non-deliberative democratic innovations look like in terms of design, scope and topic? In which contexts are they particularly useful? By interlinking theoretical and empirical perspectives on potential uses of democratic innovations beyond deliberation, the panel seeks to develop the debate on democratic innovations in novel directions.

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