Classifying Instruments of Direct and Participatory Democracy: A Functionalist Approach

Can instruments of direct and participatory democracy be studied within one conceptual framework or are they too different by institutional design? This paper takes a functionalist approach (c.f. Fung, 2006; Warren, 2017) and argues that it is important to be able to discuss different participatory instruments in terms of their contribution to the core elements of democratic systems. Although all participatory instruments include citizens in the policy process and allow the expression of their viewpoints, they have varied functions in democratic systems. For example, citizens' initiatives have a role in agenda-setting, practices of citizen deliberation should be helpful in collective will-formation, and binding referendums are instrumental to collective decision-making. Furthermore, forms of co-governance also pertain to the implementation of decisions, and crowdsourcing can serve policy evaluation by collecting dispersed knowledge. The paper provides an analytical framework of various instruments of direct and participatory democracy based on their functions in the democratic system, and discusses how a number of real-life democratic innovations (Smith, 2009) - such as the Citizens' Initiative Review, government-initiated referendums, agenda initiatives, participatory budgeting, crowdsourcing legislation, and advisory councils - fit in the framework. It also puts forward suggestions on how participatory instruments could learn from each other. For example, voters' knowledge in referendums could be improved by organizing deliberative panels beforehand (Warren and Gastil, 2015), and "soft" participatory instruments could become more empowered (Fung, 2006) and meaningful (Geissel, 2012) by adopting some features of direct democratic instruments. The paper finishes with normative reflections on the capacity of various types of participatory instruments and their combinations to fulfill democratic functions and, consequently, to enhance the quality of democratic systems.