Democratic innovations - A Practical Perspective

Question 1

What are three critical points against deliberative democracy?

Answer 1

1. Utopian
2. Hard to institutionalise in the context of contemporary mass democracies
   Empirical results
   - deliberation is possible
   - deliberation is increasingly institutionalised
   - deliberation decreases polarisation
3. People have fixed preferences and are not open towards rational argumentation
   Empirical results
   - VERY strong transformative effects
   Strong attitude changes
   Strong opinion changes
   - usually directional effects

Question 2

Can deliberative democracy bridge the gap between citizens and elites and improve democratic legitimacy?

Answer 2

Depends on the internal legitimacy of the mini-public itself.
Types of internal legitimacy
- input legitimacy
- throughput legitimacy
- output legitimacy

Question 3

For mini-publics, what are the criterion of input legitimacy and its measurements?

Answer 3

Input legitimacy

1. Quality of representation
   Measurements:
   1.1 Representativeness
   1.2. Self-selection, drop out
2. Openness of agenda
   2.1. How is agenda set
   2.2. Who sets the agenda
   2.3. Single issue vs holistic

Question 4

For mini-publics, what are the criterion and measurements of throughput legitimacy?

Answer 4

1. Quality of participation
   Is every perspective heard?
   Moderators
   Group dynamics
2. Quality of decision making
   Relative weight of argumentation and aggregation
3. Contextual independence
   Polarisation and contestation

Question 5

For mini-publics, what is the criterion (3) and measurement of output legitimacy?

Answer 5

1. Weight of results
   Do elites consider results?
   Policy implementation, agenda setting etc
2. Responsiveness
   Feedback from politicians to mini-public and general public
3. Public endorsement

Question 6

In what way does the design of the mini public matter in terms of legitimacy?

Answer 6

1. Design details determine the overall legitimacy of the mini-public:
   - institutional embeddedness
   -> more output legitimacy
   -> less open agenda
   - size matters
   -mediatisation
2. Trade-off between input and output legitimacy

Question 7

Why are democratic innovations (DI) not implemented more often?

Answer 7

• Interests
• Ideas
• Institutions