Can Democratic Innovations Transform Democracy?

Political scientists and theorists seem to have deep disagreements on democratic innovations. At one extreme, there are those who fear that democratic innovations undermine representative democracy, and at the other extreme there are those who believe that democratic innovations provide a cure for problems of democracy and perhaps even for societal problems. There are several important studies evaluating the role of democratic innovations in various political systems (e.g. Smith 2009). These studies seem to suggest that, apart from a few significant exceptions, the impact of democratic innovations has been relatively modest so far. This presentation analyzes various democratic innovations from the perspective of central democratic theoretical notions, i.e. inclusion, representation, accountability and empowerment. Democratic innovations seem to involve interpretations of these notions which challenge the standard account of representative democracy. Finally, it is argued that democratic innovations should be evaluated by their overall role in policy-making process, especially focusing on the patterns of interaction between democratic innovations and (actual) decision-making.