Tackling Democratic Deficit and Electoral Innovations

The section is organized by the Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI) in the Hans Böckler Foundation Under representative democracy, participation by the people — the main characteristic feature and purpose of democracy — is realized through election of representatives. The representatives are empowered, on behalf of the people, to make political decisions. Therefore, representative democracy is truly democratic if the elected actually represent the public interest. Since the will of the electorate is not always adequately represented, certain policies result in a discrepancy between the government and the people, resulting in so-called ‘democratic deficit’ recently recognized at all political levels up to the United Nations and the European Union. One way to tackle democratic deficit is uncovering the election potential to enhance policy representation, that is, representation of the electorate’s policy preferences. The relevant election instruments can differ not only in the way the votes are cast and processed, but in the way the candidates are considered. For example, human voters usually consider the candidates’ general ideological orientation and personal image, whereas voting advice applications (VAAs) operate on the candidates’ positions on topical policy issues. The actual section welcomes ideas and proposals to bridge the studies in policy representation and elections. The final goal is designing election methods which could make political participation by the people more profound and more efficient. A selection of papers presented is supposed to be published as a collective monograph with the ECPR Press.