Innovation and Deliberation in the Context of Democratic Erosion

Abstract

Concern over the health of democracies has spread widely over the past few years. Talking about erosion, crisis, retrenchment or backslide is now common when referring to the current state of representative democracy. At the same time, demands for direct, deliberative and participatory forms of democracy has probably never been so strong as now. Such demands may be seen as symptoms or solutions to the crisis of representative democracy. This panel will consider whether and how deliberative democracy may respond to these and other key dilemmas of contemporary democracies. It discusses theoretical and empirical papers on: (i) deliberative interpretations of current experiences with democratic erosion in various countries across the globe; (ii) the merits and limits of democratic innovations in the context of democratic erosion; (iii) the role of social movements and collective action; and (iv) the limits of deliberative democracy in making sense of the current state of democratic politics.