Can Democratic Innovations Improve the Quality of Democracy? Sketching a response

Assessing the quality of democracy became a central theoretical and practical concern in a landscape of increasing political disaffection and disenchantment with democratic institutions. Regardless of the various reasons behind the consistent decline of public trust in governmental institutions, the conviction that reforms are necessary to respond to this problem seems to be shared by those seeking to frame what a “good democracy” is. What seems yet not to be clear, however, is how to translate the normative values of democracy in an empirical formula able to countervail political disillusionment and enhance the quality of democracy. This paper aims at bringing these scholarships together in an effort to answer the question whether democratic innovations can improve the quality of democracy.