Using Institutionalism to Answer the Question: Can Democratic Innovations Improve the Quality of Democracy?

Evaluations of democratic innovations typically focus on the extent to which they deliver democratic goods within a discrete event. Recent scholarship focuses attention on the impact of democratic innovations on democratic systems. As democratic innovations spread, the questions arise: are democratic innovations simply window dressing or can they change how the broader system operates? And will the tensions between the participatory nature of democratic innovations and the lack of opportunities for participation in representative democracy make ‘business as usual’ untenable? Institutionalism provides a framework for considering these questions. The study of institutions has a long and vibrant history, with more recent work focused on integrating the competing schools of thought and providing the (long overdue) recognition that incremental change can lead to transformation. Broadly institutionalism identifies three ‘modes of constraint’ through which institutions operate: rules, practice and narratives, concepts that would resonate with democratic innovation theorists. An institutional change perspective explicitly considers the impact of democratic innovations on the existing institutions of democracy. Streeck and Thelen (2005) identify four forms of gradual transformation: displacement, layering, drift and conversion. Of relevance is layering, where new institutions are introduced on top of or beside existing institutions, leading to transformation of the existing institutions. In Australia deliberative mini-publics (citizens’ juries) are one type of democratic innovation that is gaining popularity. Most of these citizens’ juries are one-offs, but in two cases there are plans for their sustained use, providing valuable sites to test theoretical assumptions about their impact on the quality of democracy. This paper uses these cases to explore the role that democratic innovations can play in improving the quality of democracy, from an institutional perspective. It argues that an institutionalist framework sets the stage for a new research agenda that can contribute to systemic change in the quality of our democracies.