The Second Wave of Democratic Innovations: Democratic Renewal or New Tyranny?

Abstract

One of the political reactions to the 2008 global financial crash was the development of social movements mobilising against austerity measures and advancing demands for democratisation and more substantive forms of citizen engagement through horizontal and direct forms of political organisation and participation (Tormey 2016). The democratising objectives of these movements have percolated through to formal politics at times translating into electoral victories of associated political parties, or political figures, and citizen platforms in municipalities throughout Europe and the USA. This “second wave” (Sintomer 2018) of democratic innovations draws inspiration from the first (Baicocchi and Ganuza 2017); however, these new forms of experimentation with participatory democracy appear to be more plural and empowered as they take a more critical stance towards representative democracy and the neoliberal tenets underpinning current democratic systems. Given the more transformative aspirations of the second wave, in this panel we propose to reanimate the “first wave” debate between those arguing that participatory governance institutionalised new forms of “tyranny” (Cooke and Kothari 2001) and more sympathetic critics who identified its transformative potential (Hickey and Mohan et al 2004). We include theoretical and empirical papers that relate to this theme, encompassing questions regarding: • the constraints imposed by cultural, economic, and political power relations upon second wave democratic innovations; • the potential of second wave democratic innovations to reimagine the relationship between citizens and traditional institutions towards more radical democratic renewal; • where and how these new democratisation efforts sit within representative states.