How do political elites perceive the role and potential of democratic innovations?

Democratic innovations aim to improve democracy and address the democratic deficit. To date most of the research around democratic innovations has looked at their design and impact on participants. Scholarly work considering how they might achieve broader ‘macro’ impacts is in its infancy, with researchers beginning to look at how democratic innovations impact on the wider community and what impact the recommendations arising from these processes have on policy decisions. This paper considers another area of impact - on how political elites understand and practice democracy. My research uses a case study approach, interviewing political elites (elected representatives, senior public servants, advocates of democratic innovations and facilitators of these processes) who have been exposed to democratic innovations (specifically deliberative mini-publics). The research aims to uncover how these elites understand their role and the role of citizens in democratic decision-making; the relationship between these roles; and as the democratic potential and challenges of engaging with citizens through citizens’ juries. In this paper I will consider the theoretical backdrop to the relationship between political elites, citizens and democratic innovations, and set out the preliminary findings from my fieldwork with two local governments and one state government in Australia. If democratic innovations are to fulfill their potential to improve democracy they need to win the hearts and minds of those with the power to make decisions and begin the process of changing the institutions of representative democracy.