Democratizing Democratic Innovations

Section description This section invites scholars, advocates, and critics of democratic innovations to take part in a difficult but necessary conversation about the call to democratise democratic innovations. As innovative forms of citizen participation like citizens’ juries, citizens’ assemblies, and civic tech gain ground around the world, questions emerge about the extent to which institutional tinkering can actually deliver the promise of equal voice and self-government. Some make a case for the institutionalization of innovative forms of citizen participation, so the positive impacts of democratic innovations can be scaled up and made permanent. For others, democratic innovations need to better engage issues of racial inequality and epistemic injustice, especially when deliberating on polarising issues. Meanwhile, critics make a case for the replacement of democratic innovations to a more radical democratic agenda, for democratic innovations, as they are currently understood, only serve to reinforce legacies of the Anthropocene and white settler colonialism which continue to harm minoritized communities, future generations, and the environment. This section invites theoretical, empirical, and methodological papers that engage some of the sharpest critiques and blind spots in the field today. Presenters from fields outside democratic innovations will be invited to foster a critical exchange of ideas. Among the themes this section seeks to ask are the following: • The lived experience of democratic innovations. How do ordinary citizens, particularly minoritized communities experience democratic innovations? How can these processes be better designed or radically transformed to address deep-seated issues of exclusion and powerlessness? • Redesigning democratic innovations. How can the design and implementation of democratic innovations be further democratised? How can the integrity of these processes be monitored? • Climate assemblies and ecological injustice. Climate assemblies are among the most popular forms of democratic innovations today but to what extent do these assemblies make a valuable contribution to help societies address the climate emergency? How do these assemblies give voice to communities as well as non-human others most affected by climate change? • Beyond democratic innovations. What can democratic innovations learn from broader transformative democratic agendas and political projects? Ultimately, this section seeks to advance the scholarship on democratic innovations by getting to the heart of the field’s most challenging questions.