WP9. Democratic innovations and policy toolkit: knowledge-based policy actions catalogue

First, this WP aims to take stock of studies evidencing that democratic innovations likely substantiate the objective of fostering political trust and reenchanting democracy. Research effort under this WP will thus summarize all project scientific findings on trust, trust-building and the role of political trust for the support of democracy. Second, this WP aims to transform and translate this scientific knowledge into a set of knowledge-based policy actions, methodologies and tools summarized under the concept of “democratic innovations” to enhance political trust and support for democracy and organized in a freely accessible comprehensive catalogue.

WP Leader: Dr. Frederic Gonthier, Sciences Po, France.

Task 9.1. Outlining the methodological framework for a system of democratic innovations.

Contrary to electoral reforms playing on thresholds, degrees of proportionality and division of constituencies, democratic innovations relate to the various institutional mechanisms aiming to build up citizen’s involvement in political decision-making. They draw either on direct or deliberative democracy, enabling the whole citizenry or a portion of citizens to be consulted before a decision is made, or even to reach the decision themselves. Democratic innovations are usually meant to be complementary to the representative system, and not to replace it. This broad definition encompasses a very long and diverse list of mechanisms (e.g. IDEA, 2008). In this WP we will build on the previous work in this field and will enhance the existing scope of democratic innovation and the knowledge on the requirements, conditions, and environment (such as political system type, cultural values etc.) for their application. For this, we will first produce a state-of-the-art report highlighting how democratic innovations can help rebuild political trust and legitimacy (D9.1) as well as a addressing more specifically the potential of each type of democratic innovation for expanding political trust and/or countering distrust (e.g., depending on whether they are policy or process oriented, whether they increase initiative power or decision power, whether they are legal or constitutional instruments, whether they are binding or merely consultative). We will go beyond the layman opposition between institutional mechanisms inspired by direct democracy and innovations based on deliberative democracy. We will examine the extent to which increasing the number of decision makers, and deepening the quality of decisions by opening more discussion spaces can be articulated to reinforce political trust. 

Task 9.2. Knowledge-based policy actions and democratic innovations.

Upon setting up the methodological frame, the project team will proceed to derive concrete policy proposals and elaborate a comprehensive catalogue of policy actions and democratic innovations that can be applied to enhance political trust and support for democracy (D9.2). The catalogue will be structured by the type of action and the period of implementation (effects observed in short-, mid-, long-term perspective). For each of the proposed tools it will include (1) a general description of the policy action and the mechanism behind it; (2) specific conditions of social, political, economic, cultural environment that are likely to make implementation of the description action more or less successful; (3) examples of countries where this policy tool was tested / implemented. The catalogue will provide a comprehensive survey of policy tools to enhance political trust and support for democracy and will summarize the conditions and resources necessary for their successful implementation. The catalogue will be translated into all project and main European languages and will be made available electronically in free access. 

Task 9.3. Audience-targeted reports and recommendations to identify democratic innovations likely to generate political trust and develop scale-specific strategies to promote them.

Finally, the project team will supplement the communication of main quantitative and qualitative findings (i.e., WP1 and WP8) with target-specific reports and recommendations for communicative strategies building on democratic innovations. Targeted audiences are policy- and decision-makers, as well as public stakeholders at the local, regional, national and European level in all participating countries. Activities will revolve around identifying target-related specific interests in democratic innovations and their direct or indirect capacities to affect political (dis)trust. Accordingly, WP9 will produce evidence-informed recommendations and framing strategies to help these audiences promote democratic innovations while benefiting from substantial gains in political trust.