Democratic Innovations: Citizen Participation in Political Decision-Making

在发达的工业自由民主国家，民众对政治体系的不满和脱离，在学术界和政策界都越来越令人担忧。政治学领域的大量研究表明，选举投票率正在下降，对政客和许多公共机构的信任度很低，以及公民参与政治制度的传统网络和组织(如政党、工会等)。都在减弱。与此同时，人们对挑战自由民主理论和实践的民主理论重新产生了兴趣，强调公民参与在建立政治决策过程的合法性方面的重要性。这种对参与的兴趣不仅仅是一个学术关注的问题--政策制定者经常哀叹公民参与的明显下降，同时促进其合法性取决于实现高水平的社区参与的政策。拟议的研究旨在调查我们为什么重视公民参与的原因，以及这种评估性承诺在多大程度上体现在民主创新中。对于“为什么公民参与？”这个问题，有一系列民主理论提供了不同的答案。例如，在一些理论中，参与具有内在价值；在另一些理论中，参与具有工具价值。在分析了我们与参与有关的各种不同价值观之后，拟议的研究将调查这些价值观在不同类型的民主创新(无论是选举、协商、共同治理还是直接民主创新)中的表现程度。它还将提出一个问题，即创新是否可以结合或排序，以更有效地将民主价值观嵌入政治进程。拟议的研究试图将当代民主理论的发展与新兴的民主试验联系起来。它不仅将在理论上对不同的民主创新提供明智的评估，而且还将提供一个机会，根据从民主实践中吸取的教训重新评估民主理论。人们普遍认识到，民主理论需要更多地关注制度设计的问题--这方面的工作还很少。拟议的研究将提供一个例子，说明民主理论和制度设计方面经常脱节的文献如何建设性地整合起来。

There is growing concern in both academic and policy circles about disaffection and disengagement of citizens from the political system in advanced industrial liberal democracies. Numerous studies within political science offer evidence that electoral turnout is declining, levels of trust in politicians and many public institutions is low, and the traditional networks and organisations through which citizens engage with the political system (e.g. political parties, trade unions, etc.) are weakening. At the same time there has been a resurgence of interest in democratic theories which challenge the theory and practice of liberal democracy, stressing the importance of citizen engagement in building the legitimacy of political decision making processes. This interest in participation is not simply an issue of academic concern -policy makers frequently lament the apparent decline in citizen engagement and at the same time promote policies whose legitimacy rests on achieving high levels of community engagement.The proposed research aims to investigate the reasons why we value citizen participation and the extent to which such evaluative commitments are expressed in democratic innovations. There are a range of democratic theories which offer different answers to the question 'why citizen participation?' for example, in some theories participation is of intrinsic value; in others of instrumental value. Having analysed the variety of different values we associate with participation the proposed research will investigate the extent to which these values are expressed in different types of democratic innovations (be they electoral, consultation, co governance or direct democratic innovations). It will also raise the question of whether innovations might be combined or sequenced to more effectively embed democratic values in the political process.The proposed research attempts to connect developments in contemporary democratic theory with emerging democratic experimentation. Not only willit offer a theoretically informed evaluation of different democratic innovations, but it will also provide an opportunity to reevaluate theories of democracy in light of the lessons learnt from democratic practice. It is widely recognised that democratic theory needs to pay more attention to questions of institutional design -there is a paucity of work in this area. The proposed research will offer one example of how the often disconnected literatures on democratic theory and institutional design can be constructively integrated.