Democratic innovations and the maxi-public: Democratic legitimacy and consent

Abstract

Democratic innovations are often heralded as a way to increase the legitimacy of public decisions. However, these participatory mechanisms rarely substitute for the whole citizenry, which remains the ultimate source of legitimacy. Therefore, it is crucial to study how the public perceives the use and outcomes of democratic innovations to understand their potential to generate legitimacy. This panel invites papers that empirically study the public perceptions of various democratic innovations, including referendums, participatory budgeting, digital platforms, and minipublics.

Title	Details
In Digital Platforms We Trust: Legitimacy Perceptions of a Digital Democratic Innovation and a Digital Vote Leaflet Created by Ordinary Citizens	View Paper Details
Citizens’ Preferences for Generic Democratic Practices: A Conjoint Experiment in the U.S. and Germany	View Paper Details
The effect of adding deliberation to a direct democratic process on outcome acceptance among the maxi-public	View Paper Details
Assessing the impact of Dutch participatory budgeting processes on the political attitudes of citizens in the broader public: empirical evidence from two cases in Amsterdam and one in Enschede	View Paper Details
Direct democratic consent? On the relative effect of direct democratic victory and loss on political support in multi-ballot elections	View Paper Details