Innovations in democratic governance: how does citizen participation contribute to a better democracy?

Abstract

Over recent decades, many countries have gained experience with referendums, citizens’ forums, citizens’ juries, collaborative governance, participatory budgeting, and other models in which citizens have a more direct say. Citizen participation is usually considered a valuable element of democratic citizenship and democratic decision-making. Many theorists claim that citizen participation has positive effects on the quality of democracy. This article examines the probability of these claims for a large number of cases in different Western countries. Four types of democratic innovation are distinguished and evaluated according to the extent to which they realize positive effects on democracy. The findings show that citizen involvement has a number of positive effects on democracy: it increases issue knowledge, civic skills, and public engagement, and it contributes to the support for decisions among the participants. The analysis also makes it clear that the contribution of participation to democracy differs according to type of democratic innovations; deliberative forums and surveys appear to be better at promoting the exchange of arguments, whereas referendums and participatory policy making projects are better at giving citizens influence on policy making and involving more people. But, as I try to argue, since these positive effects are perceptible only to those taking part and the number of participants is often small or particular groups are underrepresented, the benefits to individual democratic citizenship are far more conclusive than the benefits to democracy as a whole. Points for practitioners This article distinguishes four types of democratic innovation and, for each type, examines the effects of citizen participation on the quality of democracy. It offers a systematic analysis of the contribution of participation to elements of democracy, such as influence on decision-making, inclusion, skills and virtues, deliberation, and legitimacy. The analysis points to a number of positive effects on democracy, but the findings also show that the contribution of participation to democracy differs according to the type of democratic innovations.