Best Paper Award GC 2023

The Democratic Innovations ECPR Standing Group annually presents the Best Paper Award to the authors of a paper presented in the Democratic Innovations section at the ECPR General Conference. This year, twelve papers were nominated for the Award by panel chairs (see full list below). The 2023 section convenors, Franizska Maier, Melisa Ross and Julien Vrydagh, chose this year's winner based on the criteria of novelty and quality of research, career stage, and alignment with the section's theme Resetting the Boundaries: from Democratic Innovations to Participatory (self)Governance.

We are delighted to announce that Matthias Rosenthal is the recipient of the 2023 Best Paper Award with his contribution "Direct Democracy Consent? On the relative effect of direct democracy victory and loss on political support in multi-ballot elections".

Rosenthal’s outstanding paper aligns with the section call by examining referendums and their impact on public satisfaction with political actors. The paper directly engages with the widely held notion that referendums serve as a panacea for public dissatisfaction and skillfully dissects this claim, showing instead a more nuanced landscape: referendums tend to enhance satisfaction among the winning side, suggesting that their positive effects are largely confined to political winners. The study is anchored in a dataset encompassing 84 referenda held in 13 U.S. Federal States, providing a robust empirical basis for the findings. The author’s analysis of outcome favorability as the primary driver of shifts in supportive attitudes towards political actors is a key contribution to ongoing research efforts connecting referenda to the wider political system, and a substantial addition to broadening the conversation over democratic innovations. We look forward to reading more of Matthias Rosenthal‘s work in the future and see his conclusions engage with comparative evidence. 

We also congratulate all runner up papers for their excellent quality and for broadening the scope of our field.

List of nominated papers in panel order:

• Anna Przybylska, University of Warsaw: Procedural aspects of knowledge creating and sharing in mini-publics at the times of disinformation
• Magni Szymaniak-Arnesen within the panel on Deliberative Democracy when Democracy is Declining: Revitalizing Democracy in Central and Eastern European countries
• Paulina Pospieszna, Daniel Oross, Magni Szymaniak-Arnesen, Gabriella Kiss: Strengthening Democracy from the Bottom-Up: Public Servants and NGOs' Perspectives on Citizens' Assemblies
• Adela Gasiorowska: Deliberation in the service of just transition. Evaluation of deliberation in Polish Citizens’ Assembly on Energy Costs
• Eva-Maria Trüdinger et al.: Good news for democracy: citizens do not want strong leaders, but inclusive representative institutions with checks and balances
• Seraphine Arnold and André Bächtiger: The determinants of minipublic uptake: results from a new databank
• Atte Ojanen: Benefits of citizen deliberation for future-regarding governance
• Thamy Pogrebinschi, Mariana Borges Martins da Silva; Maria Dominguez: Can Civil Society Counteract Disinformation? Mobilizing Collective Intelligence in Electoral Processes
• Alice Siu, Estelle Ciesla, Joshua Goodwin, Matthew Torre : Deliberative Polling in Sub-Saharan Africa: Results and Reflections from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa
• Indira Latorre and Felipe Rey: Beyond colonization and tropicalization: deliberative innovation in Latin America
• Andri Heimann: Elite perspectives on the merits of deliberative mini-publics. Local officials’ tales from three Swiss cities.
• Janosch Prinz and Manon Westphal: The Tribunate as a Realist Democratic Innovation