Democratic Innovations: Citizen Participation in Political Decision-Making

学术界和政策界都越来越担心，在先进的工业自由民主国家，公民对政治制度的不满和脱离。政治学领域的许多研究提供的证据表明，选举投票率正在下降，对政治家和许多公共机构的信任程度很低，公民参与政治制度的传统网络和组织（如政党、工会等）正在减弱与此同时，人们对民主理论的兴趣重新抬头，这对自由民主的理论和实践提出了挑战，强调了公民参与在建立政治决策过程合法性方面的重要性。对参与感兴趣不仅仅是一个学术关注的问题--政策制定者经常为公民参与的明显下降而感到遗憾，同时推动其合法性依赖于实现高水平社区参与的政策。拟议的研究旨在调查我们重视公民参与的原因以及这种评估性承诺在民主创新中表达的程度。有一系列的民主理论，提供了不同的答案的问题“为什么公民参与？“例如，在某些理论中，参与具有内在价值;在其他理论中，参与具有工具价值。在分析了我们与参与相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）中的表达程度。它还将提出一个问题，即创新是否可以组合或排序，以更有效地嵌入民主价值观在政治进程中，拟议的研究试图连接在当代民主理论的发展与新兴的民主实验。它不仅将为不同的民主创新提供理论上的评估，而且还将提供一个根据从民主实践中吸取的教训重新评估民主理论的机会。人们普遍认为，民主理论需要更多地关注制度设计的问题-这方面的工作很少。拟议的研究将提供一个例子，说明如何经常断开的文献民主理论和制度设计可以建设性地整合。

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.