Democratic Innovation and Local Administrations in the Alpine region: A Contextual Analysis in relation to the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino

In recent decades, major challenges to representative decision-making have provided a breeding ground for reflection on the future of democratic governance. Concerns refer to declining levels of political support, to increasing levels of social mistrust, and to the need to rethink formats of political participation. In response to these trends, democratic innovations have been proposed as a remedy for more inclusive decision-making. The Alpine region is no exception to these trends. The paper explores the nexus between democratic innovation and local administrations in relation to the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino, an Alpine borderland whose constituent units enjoy significant political autonomy. First, it focuses on whether and how practices are institutionalized. Second, it analyzes why and to what extent they are tested or carried out regularly. As elsewhere, also in this part of the Alpine region the local level is the place where participatory deliberative practices can be tested more easily, not least because local politics is significantly closer to the people than that of higher levels. The paper offers an empirical account of democratic innovation and the role of local administrations by combining existing and new datasets. It advances our understanding of democratic innovation and local administrations by exploring participatory deliberative practices that are carried out at local level, across governmental levels involving one or more local administrations, and between one or more local administrations that relate to two or more States.