Democratic innovations are novel institutions that are implemented to increase citizen participation and improve the quality of democratic politics. One example are so-called citizens’ assemblies, which bring together randomly selected citizens to discuss a particular topic or policy question and formulate a recommendation on how the topic or question should be dealt with. While the number of experiments with such democratic innovations increases and participants often make good experiences with them, they are also subject to criticism. A key objection against citizens’ assemblies, for example, is that they tend to be ineffective because they only have advisory functions and decision makers can ignore their recommendations. This course deals with different types of democratic innovations and their respective strengths and weaknesses. Students will study concrete examples of democratic innovations and engage with the scholarly debate on their potential uses for democracy. A particular emphasis will be put on ideas for new possibilities for thinking and designing democratic innovations in the future.
- Lehrende/r: Manon Westphal