Changing Democracy? Why Inertia is Winning Over Innovation

Representative democracy seems to be in crisis in Western political systems. Of-cited symptoms of this crisis include citizens’ distrust towards political institutions and decreasing participation in conventional politics. In order to cure that democratic malaise and increase citizens’ involvement in decision-making processes, democratic innovations are often cited as a remedy. In spite of the trend towards more inclusive institutions, changes remain rare. Why are innovations not implemented? In this paper, we provide some explanation of why inertia seems to win over change through an analysis of party elites’ willingness to change democracy across 15 European democracies, by using the PARTIREP Comparative MP Survey. The paper observes that party elites’ preferred innovations vary along several elements: party system configuration, time in government, electoral system and type of coalition. Party ideology and being in government seem to be the main determinants of opposition to innovation.