Can Democratic Innovations Improve the Quality of Democracy?

Assessing the quality of democracy became a central theoretical and practical concern in a landscape of increasing political disaffection and disenchantment with democratic institutions. How to translate the normative values of democracy in an empirical formula able to countervail political disillusionment and enhance the quality of democracy is still an open question everywhere democracy has grown roots. In the last years, democratic innovations have been designed and a more comprehensive account of participation has been offered as a response to the “crisis” of representative democracy. But can democratic innovations increase the quality of democracy? This workshops aims at answering this question, and discussing recipes to enhance the quality of democracy in representative channels that include more than political parties and in constitutional designs that allow for participation and competition beyond the electoral system. The workshop also aims at bringing together scholars that work on the fields of quality of democracy and of democratic innovations, two scholarships that grew apart in recent years.