Innovations in Democratic Governance

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

Democratic theory has developed emancipatory ideals of inclusion, empowerment, and transparency; however, these ideals have not been fully practiced to a large extent due to many limitations coming from the adopted formal institutions and mechanisms of representative democracy. Scholars believe that to allow citizens to take a greater role in public affairs, some forms of participatory and deliberative politics should be implemented through democratic innovations. These innovations are expected to facilitate inclusive, respectful, well-informed, and more consensus-oriented communication, which is crucial to democratic quality. The goal of the course is to review the debates on participatory and deliberative democracy; we also will draw on comparative analysis of democratic innovations implemented in different countries. This is a reading and writing course and students are expected to actively participate in class.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

The course grade will be determined by the course participation and discussion, written forms, and group presentations. Students’ regular attendance and active class participation are a basic requirement. Attendance will be monitored with an attendance sheet. Students are expected to be present and active participation during seminar discussions is essential.

Syllabus

Week 1:          Introduction/ Defining Liberal Democracy

Week 2:          Limitations and Challenges of Liberal Democracy

Week 3:          Changes and Reforms of Democracy

Week 4:          Democratic Innovations and Theories of Democracy (deliberative, direct, participatory)

Week 5:          Democracy Innovations: Definition, Typology and Origin

Week 6:          Participatory Budgeting

Week 7:          Referendum and citizens’ initiatives

Week 8:          Citizens’ Assemblies, Juries (1)

Week 9:          Citizens’ Assemblies, Juries (2)

Week 10:          Deliberative Polling

Week 11:          Mini-publics: design choices, actors, and legitimacy

Week 12:          Democratic innovations in North America

Week 13:          Democratic innovations in Latin America

Week 14:          Democratic innovations in Europe

Week 15:          Effectiveness and Evaluation of Democratic Innovations

Reading list

Some examples of readings that will be used during the class. All readings will be provided by the instructor via Moodle platform:

• Charles Tilly. 2007. "What is Democracy", Democracy. Cambridge University Press, Chapter 1.
• Przeworski, Adam. 2011. Democracy and the Limits of Self-Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 1 and 2.
• Christian W. Haerpfer et al. Democratization. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, Chapters 3 and 6
• Fung, Archon and Wright, Erik Olin. 2003. “Thinking about Empowered Participatory Governance”. In: Fung, Archon and Wright, Erik Olin (eds.). Deepening Democracy. Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance. London: Verso.
• Smith, Graham. 2009. Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Introduction and Chapter 1.
• Youngs, Richard. Can Citizen Participation Really Revive European Democracy?
• Baiocchi, Gianpaolo. 2003. “Participation, Activism, and Politics: The Porto Alegre Experiment and Deliberative Democratic Theory”, In: Archon Fung and Erik Olin Wright (eds.): Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance, London: Verso Press: 45‐
• Mansbridge, Jane. 2010. “Deliberative Polling as the Gold Standard” The Good Society 19 (1), pp. 55‐
• Warren, Mark e Pearse, H. 2008. “Introduction: Democratic Renewal and Deliberative Democracy” In: Warren, Mark e Pearse, H. (eds.). Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Escobar, Oliver, and Stephen Elstub. Deliberative innovations: Using ‘mini-publics’ to improve participation and deliberation at the Scottish Parliament. Submission to the Scottish Commission on Parliamentary Reform (2016-2017).
• Gerwin, Marcin. 2018. Citizens’ Assemblies: A guide to democracy that works. A step-by-step how-to guide aimed at practitioners in government and civil society in plain language.
• Farrell, David M, Nicole Curato, John S. Dryzek, Brigitte Geißel, Kimmo Grönlund, Sofie Marien, Simon Niemeyer, Jean-Benoit Pilet, Alan Renwick, Jonathan Rose, Maija Setälä, and Jane Suiter. Deliberative Mini-Publics: Core design features (2019) Academic analysis of key design features of deliberative mini-publics. Part of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance working paper series.