Class 5 - Democratic Innovations Flashcards
What are democratic innovations?
New ways of organising democracy as a response to the alleged legitimacy crisis.
Types of democratic innovations:
- direct democracy
- e-voting, e-government
- deliberative mini-publics
- participatory budgeting
- compulsory voting
- deliberative polls
What are the two main logics of democracy (in general but specifically behind democratic innovations)?
- Aggregative - democracy as counting better
- citizens have fixed preferences
- democratic procedures need to simply add these preferences (voting)
-> direct & representative democracy - Transformative (democracy as talking)
- citizens have largely uninformed preferences
- democratic procedure needs to allow citizens to develop, engage and transform their preferences
-> deliberative democracy
What are the 4 types of direct democracy / legislation?
- consultative referendums
- constitutional / compulsory referendums
- popular referendums
- initiatives
What are the advantages of direct legislation?
- inclusiveness
- strong popular control
- stronger levels of political efficacy
- efficient
What are disadvantages of direct legislation?
- unequal participation
- assumption of voter rationality
- costly
- binary choice
- focus on issue in isolation
- risk of misuse / abuse (design)
- majoritarian device
- no-camp usually wins
What are the nuances of direct legislation design?
- qualification requirements
- decision rule
- role of politicians
- importance of pre-vote public debate
What are the two elements that make a deliberative mini-public?
- deliberation
- mini publics
What are the 4 values of a deliberative mini-public?
- Inclusion
Representativeness
‘All affected’ principle - Respect
For others
For counterarguments - Openness
‘Forceless force of the best argument’ - Rationality
Strict rationality
What does a deliberative mini public consist of (Who? What? By whom?)
- forum of quasi-randomly selected citizens
- hearing of expert witnesses
- independent facilitator
- receiving neutral information
- deliberating about a political issue in plenary or small group sessions
- initiated by gov / non gov organisation
What are the three types of deliberative mini-publics?
- Restrictive definition
-strict randomisation, no self selection
- large N
- objective information
- neutral moderation
E.g.: deliberative polls - Intermediate definition
- diversity (not purely random)
- small enough to be deliberative, large enough to be epistemically diverse - Expansive definition
- any type of collaborative gov mechanism
- linkage function
- no specific design criteria
E.g.: Participatory Budgeting
What are the 6 functions of deliberative mini-publics?
POLICY
- making actual policy
- market testing of policy
- legitimising policy
- making recommendations
INFORMATION - informing public debate
TRUST BUILDING - confidence building
What are the three recruitment methods?
- open call
- random selection
- targeted recruitment
WHAT - policy should be under scrunity?
Local - regional - national - international
Dillema
Are all issues suitable for deliberation (e.g.: gay rights)
HOW are deliberative mini-publics conducted?
- deliberation
- independent facilitator
- expert opinions
- decision making rules
- scripts
