Democratic Renewal and Resilience: Citizens’ Views on Participatory Reforms and Preventive Measures

Abstract

Efforts to improve and defend liberal democracy take many forms. Participatory and deliberative fora are frequently highlighted as promising avenues for democratic renewal in the context of a broader legitimacy crisis. The papers in this panel examine the limitations and possibilities of these innovative formats for citizen engagement in democratic decision-making, assessing their potential through experiments and survey-based research. At the same time, contemporary debates increasingly focus on mechanisms that can curb executive dominance and prevent undemocratic actors from gaining power. This panel also explores preventive measures designed to safeguard democratic institutions, as well as citizens’ attitudes toward violations of democratic and civil rights—particularly in emergency or crisis situations. Together, the contributions offer a multifaceted perspective on current strategies to strengthen and protect liberal democracy.

Title	Details
A Survey Experiment on the Effects of Knowing and Not Knowing for the Evaluation of Democratic Norm Violations	View Paper Details
Pluralistic Discussions, Graceful Losers? The Role of Throughput Legitimacy for Decision Acceptance in Deliberative Online Citizen Participation	View Paper Details
Democratic Renewal Through Experimental Deliberative Mini-Publics: An Argument for Institutional Rehearsal Using EU Citizen Deliberation on AI	View Paper Details
Affective Polarization and Support for Militant Democracy: the Role of Democracy Conceptions	View Paper Details
The (Conditional) Acceptance of Democratic Norm Violations During an Emergency. A Comparative Study	View Paper Details