What hinders democratic innovation? A local level analysis of participation during the pandemic emergency in Tuscany

Democratic innovations seem to be flourishing across many countries in Europe and beyond. Indeed, research highlights how during the pandemic their number and variety has further incremented. This phenomenon characteristic of many contexts rightly commands scholarly attention. However, we should not overlook that in many places democratic innovation is still limited or non-existed and the pandemic has not changed the situation significantly. The latter, more sobering aspect deserves greater attention. This paper investigates the case of the Tuscany region in Italy where, after an early take up, democratic innovations have failed to gain momentum and during the pandemic have been extremely marginal. The paper investigates why civil society actors did not consider democratic innovations as a useful way to engage in the pandemic context and preferred other often non-institutional forms of citizen participation. The paper is based on an interpretive approach to insight from more than 30 interviews and 5 focus groups, which zoomed in on communication and participation issues during the pandemic. The paper gives priority to research participants’ understanding of democratic politics in pandemic over scholarly accounts centered on the benefits and pitfalls of democratic innovations. In doing that, the paper strives towards a balanced reflection about the role that democratic innovations might (or might not) play in different contexts and it sheds a light on the reasons why in some contexts democratic innovations are less developed.