The impact of democratic innovations on citizens’ democratic attitudes and process preferences

Abstract

Several studies have shown that there is a growing support among citizens in established democracies to introduce democratic innovations that would provide citizens with more opportunities to participate to policy-making (Schuck and de Vreese, 2015; Bedock & Pilet, 2020; Werner et al., 2020). In many countries, public authorities have followed track and have experimented with various forms of democratic innovations. Hopes were that democratic innovations could help curing the democratic malaise (Geißel & Newton, 2012). However, we still know little as whether a greater use of instruments of citizens’ participation does actually affect how citizens view and evaluate democracy after their country has implemented a form of democratic innovations. Some studies have argued that the effect of providing citizens with more opportunities to participate would either change very little, or could even lead to greater skepticism among citizens towards democratic innovations as instruments that could be implemented by public authorities in democracies (Rojon and Rijken, 2021; van Dijk and Lefevere, 2021). The panel invites papers that would study on basis of empirical data how the implementation of a form of democratic innovation in a democracy is perceived by citizens, and how it might affect their attitudes towards democracy as well as their process preferences regarding how political systems should be organized. Papers can be studying various forms of democratic innovations (referendums and citizen initiatives, citizens’ assemblies, participatory budgets, collaborative/co-governance processes and so on), at various levels (local, regional, national), in various countries (single case or comparative papers), and/or over time.

Title	Details
Institutionalizing deliberative mini-publics? Issues of legitimacy and power for randomly selected assemblies in political systems	View Paper Details
Through the Looking Glass: The Effect of Participation in a Participatory Budget on Citizens’ Populist Attitudes	View Paper Details
Should you choose to accept it. Examining the effects of normative, relational and instrumental considerations on outcome acceptance among populist individuals	View Paper Details
Comparing the impact of the citizens’ assembly on climate in Luxembourg on participants and non-participants.	View Paper Details