Zen and the Art of Democracy Maintenance: Towards a theory of democratic repair

How to maintain political stability and community belongs to the recurring questions of political science. Throughout the history of political thought, one finds an inevitable tendency attributed to institutions to erode over time. Democratic viability has become an established matter of modern government too, but also an increasing concern. From populism and polarization, autocratization, to democratic backsliding, research in political science has proliferated regarding various changes and challenges to democratic government, how to assess as well as redress them. With democracies under pressure, research abounds about democratic stability, and on democratic reforms, innovations and new forms of participation. However, a stark contrast remains in the lack of analyses rather on renovation, the care or upkeep of existing institutions. Surely innovations, experiments and other kinds of invention are essential to democratic longevity. Yet, both the longer-term diachronic perspective as well as current challenges beg for a systematic account of possibilities, and even imperatives, of mending, maintenance and repair. At bottom line, it appears high time to address how to complement the wealth of perspectives on democratic innovation with an analytical framework on democratic renovation or repair. In this paper, we explore in condensed fashion democratic-theoretical and comparative-democratic perspectives to configure such a framework for democratic repair. Our approach does not exclude, nor discount democratic innovation. Instead, a theory of democratic repair adds ‘another’ side, geared more toward caring, mending, and overall maintenance side of democracy. The paper conceptualizes, moreover, democratic repair as a specific political practice of remolding and revitalizing institutions and processes, though it likewise builds on wider and ongoing engagement and involvement, appealing to citizenship, commitments, dedication and care. Furthermore, we propose to conceive democratic repair in different variants or strands, for instance: democratic repair as mode of incremental institutional adaptation, which entails e.g. the active usage, widening, reshaping, channeling and redirection of existing rules and path-dependencies; and democratic repair as mode of "institutional hermeneutics", which involves the quest for understanding, re-/interpreting the complex, often partially hidden logics of practices and rules embedded in concrete institutions (i.e. since we can only repair what we understand). Both the active institutional-adaptation mode and the institutional-interpretation or hermeneutic mode of democratic repair, again, entails involvement or engagement. We may even integrate innovation into democratic repair, but not in the sense of overcoming or overturning, but rather as further development, or as mode of "embedded innovations": reforms or renewals within the given institutional framework, drawing on e.g. conditions or untapped potentials, re-building with and recycling given ‘material’ or resources. Finally, in the ‘zen’ art of democracy maintenance, the democratic innovation side should be conceived more as the "yang" of a viable democracy, while the "yin" lies in turn in the democratic repair side. Accordingly, maintaining a viable democracy requires grappling with and striking a balance between different principles and needs. Thus, we conclude with reflections on democratic repair, not for resolving democratic dilemma, but rather for a theory and perspective of a coping democracy.