Democratic Innovations and Quality of Democracy:

Do we need new and more creative recipes?

Thamy Pogrebinschi

Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB)

thamy.pogrebinschi@wzb.eu

Paper prepared for delivery at:

7th General Conference of the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR), Sciences Po,

Bordeaux, 4-7 September 2013

and

Gemeinsame 3-Länder-Tagung der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft (DVPW), der

Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Politikwissenschaft (ÖGPW) und der Schweizerischen Vereinigung

für Politische Wissenschaft (SVPW). Leopold-Franzens Universität Innsbruck, 19-21 September 2013

Abstract: Recent studies on the quality of democracy have concluded that “the greater the participation, the higher the probability that government and its decisions are responsive” (Levine and Molina 2011). However, quality of democracy indices usually measure political participation based on voting turnout, opportunities to vote and representativeness of institutions. In addition to voting, surveys define participation as organizing, assembling, protesting and lobbying. Access to government offices and membership in groups like political parties and civil society associations are also included in most indices. Those definitions of participation still amount to a minimalist or, at most, pluralist model of democracy; they do not account for the social and political changes brought about worldwide by the increasing dissemination of democratic innovations. This paper claims that an updated and more comprehensive notion of (non-electoral) participation is an integral part of the task of reforming political institutions and assessing the quality of democracy. It proposes a set of criteria to assess democratic innovations, envisaging the improvement of current measurements of the quality of democracy. The paper also argues that an enlarged account of political participation is one of the key elements that distinguish recent institutional reform in Latin America and Europe, and one that may explain the increasing disaffection with democracy in the latter in contrast with the decreasing levels of political distrust in the former.

1

Assessing the quality of democracy became a central theoretical and practical concern in a

landscape of increasing political disaffection and disenchantment with democratic institutions.

Regardless of the various reasons behind the consistent decline of public trust in governmental

institutions, the conviction that reforms are necessary to respond to this problem seems to be

shared by those seeking to frame what a “good democracy” is. What seems yet not to be clear,

however, is how to translate the normative values of democracy in an empirical formula able to

countervail political disillusionment and enhance the quality of democracy, and to accomplish it

everywhere democracy has grown roots.

In a major comparative work, Diamond and Morlino (2005) concluded that a particular type

of democracy seems better suited to higher democratic quality, namely, one that generates and

facilitates high levels of participation and competition. That the latters empirically perform as the

“engines of democratic quality” indicates that Dahl’s concept of polyarchy (1971) remains central to

measurements, despite the need to reframe it in order to evaluate participation and competition

not merely as rights but as effective exercise of rights (Altman and Pérez-Liñán 2002). The question

that remains open, however, is not whether high participation and competition can boost the quality

of democracy, but how this result can be attained. Reflecting on this, Diamond and Morlino point to

a crucial problem: “is it enough to financially support representative channels, such as parties, and

have a constitutional design and an electoral system that allow for participation and competition? Or

do we need new and more creative recipes?” (2005: xxxvii).

This paper claims that new and more creative recipes to enhance the quality of democracy

are to be searched in representative channels that include more than parties and in constitutional

designs that allow for participation and competition beyond the electoral system. New democratic

experiments that provide citizens with opportunities to participate beyond the ballot, and non-

elected bodies that claim to provide representation regardless of mandates are among the

ingredients that compose the assorted and multifarious menu offered by the so-called democratic

innovations.

That democratic innovations are a response for political disillusionment and a possible cure

for the malaises of representative democracy is no new argument (Selee and Peruzzotti 2009,

Geissel and Newton 2012), as well as the potential of democratic innovations to deepen democracy

(Fung and Wright 2003) or to improve its quality (Geissel 2009) is not an unknown issue. However,

not only the scholarships on democratic innovation and on quality of democracy are divorced

(Geissel and Mayne 2013), but both present shortcomings that render dialogue difficult and hinder

joint efforts to creatively devise new recipes for coping with democratic deficits.

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On the one hand, there is still little comparative empirical research on the impacts of

democratic innovations, and the few existing cases and studies are mostly limited to the local level.

This brings about the question of whether democratic innovations are feasible in different and larger

settings, as well as whether they are really inclusory and not cursed by social selection. Without

assessing the feasibility of democratic innovations in the macro political level and the inclusiveness

of both their procedures and results, it is quite difficult to estimate their effectiveness, and therefore

their actual potential to reduce political discontentment and ultimately augment the quality of

democracy.

On the other hand, scholarship on and assessments of quality of democracy disregard

research on democratic innovations and produce incomplete measurements, that is indices unable

to account for participatory reforms increasingly undertaken by national and sub-national

governments. Those reforms aimed at expanding opportunities for citizen participation display

different levels of institutionalization and various design options, most of them unable to fit

indicators that insist on measuring participation mainly as electoral turnout, or as voting rights. Even

measurements that take rights to assemble (membership in political parties and civil society

organizations) and to protest (join demonstrations and sign petitions) into account fail to

conceptualize participation in line with democratic innovations. Without a more comprehensive and

updated concept of participation, one cannot properly estimate the actual role of this “engine of

democratic quality”, as well as its actual relation with the other commonly evaluated dimensions,

including competition itself.

In this paper, I will propose an analytical framework that seeks to address those

shortcomings of democratic innovation and quality of democracy scholarships. I will argue that

democratic innovations must meet three sets of criteria – feasibility, inclusiveness and effectiveness

– in order to be presented as successful responses to the malaises of representative democracy and

their ensuing political disillusionment. Furthermore, I will argue that once a more comprehensive

and updated concept of participation is taken into consideration, democratic innovations can

enhance the quality of democracy if they prove capable to activate other dimensions usually

measured by democracy indices, in particular competition, responsiveness and equality. Finally, I will

conclude by claiming that the institutionalization of democratic innovations within the boundaries of

representative democracy – or the combination of representative, participatory and deliberative

devices – is a recipe of political reform able to restore satisfaction and increase the quality of

democracy.

3

From political disaffection to democratic quality through more participation?

In recent years a vast body of literature has been devoted to trying to explain the growth of

political disaffection and distrust in political institutions in consolidated democracies (Dalton 2004;

Inglehart 2003; Newton 2006; Norris 1999 and 2011; Pharr, Putnam and Dalton 2000). In

conjunction with concerns about decline of trust in political institutions, a long list of what Philippe

Schmitter (2010) calls “morbidity symptoms” was developed by scholars. These include decline in

electoral turnout, falling party membership and identification, greater volatility in voter preferences

and outcomes, greater difficulty in obtaining and sustaining majority support for governments,

declining centrality of parliament, and increased devolution of authority to administrative bodies.

Concerns about those and other symptoms had long given rise to debate on the “crisis of

democracy” (Crozier, Huntington and Watanuki 1975; Habermas 1975; Liz and Stepan 1978; Kaase

and Newton 1995), or, more specifically, on the “crisis of representation” (Köchler 1987; Hayward

1996). Scholars however never really seemed to agree on whether the supposed crisis is one of

efficacy (measured by a decline in institutional efficacy) or legitimacy (perceived by change in the

relations between civil society, parties, and government institutions), which would allow one to

differentiate between a crisis of democracy and a crisis in democracy (Morlino 1998).

Several explanations for political discontentment have been considered over the years.

These include, among other things, rise in levels of education and information, change of values,

economic shifts, and the overexposure of governmental shortcomings by the mass media. Some

scholars yet argue that longitudinal evidence shows fluctuation over time, rather than linear

downward trends leading to the conclusion that “public support for the political system has not

eroded consistently in established democracies, not across a wide range of countries around the

globe” (Norris 2011). Furthermore, surveys and analyses also show that most citizens in established

and in newer democracies still share widespread adhesion to the ideals and principles of democracy

(Norris 1999 and 2011).

If the normative support for democracy remains solid, it seems reasonable to suppose that

the extent of political disaffection and talk about “crisis” of democracy are somehow overstated.

Further, if the level of trust in representative institutions like parliaments and political parties

decreases while the level of support for the principles and values of democracy remains stable, that

may indicate at least two things: first, citizens’ expectations towards democracy are higher than the

ability of representative institutions to fulfill them, and second, citizens no longer associate

democracy exclusively to representative institutions.

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If such diagnosis makes sense, then instead of a crisis what the present situation indicates is

a misalignment between citizens’ demands for participation and the capacities of traditional political

institutions to match those demands. This misalignment would point to the notion of “democratic

deficit” (Bellamy and Castiglione 2000, Warren 2009), or more specifically to an imbalance between

the higher demands for more democracy and the perceived lower supply of democracy (Norris

2011). Scholars increasingly recognize that part of the present disenchantment with democracy does

concern procedures and institutions, and stems also from higher citizen expectations of what

democracy can deliver in terms of results (Diamond and Morlino 2005).

Citizens expect more from democracy and demand more to further participate on

governance. Demands for increased participation and more responsive governments are rising

steadily, despite findings that civic participation in social organizations is declining along with

membership in political parties and electoral turnout (Putnam 2000). Higher demands for

participation lead to higher dissatisfaction with democracy when political institutions do not

properly accommodate them. Scholars call to attention the fact that such demands, if left

unattended, could then gradually undermine the legitimacy and responsiveness of democracy

(Warren 2009).

The intrinsic support for democracy by citizens is the core of the concept of legitimacy,

which has long been considered as the defining element of democratic consolidation (Diamond

1999, Linz and Stepan 1996) if not “the key to democratic consolidation” (Merkel 1998). According

to attitudinal measurements of consolidation, the more supportive the citizens, the more

democratic a regime (Schedler 2001). An important aspect of democratic legitimacy is that citizens

have a fair chance of influencing the outcomes of the decision-making process on issues that affect

their own lives (Schmitter and Trechsel 2004). Participation is therefore an integral part of the

concept of legitimacy. The same is true for responsiveness. Recent studies on the quality of

democracy have concluded that “the greater the participation, the higher the probability that

government and its decisions are responsive” (Levine and Molina 2011). Powell (2004) has sharply

defined democratic responsiveness as “what occurs when the democratic process induces

governments to form and implement policies that the citizens want”. If this is true, then it is

reasonable to suppose that an effective way to achieve legitimacy and responsiveness is letting the

citizens themselves take part in the formulation and implementation of the policies they want – or,

in other words, enhancing participation.

Reforms intended to promote participation are not a new item on the democracy agenda. In

order to enhance the legitimacy of political institutions, established democracies have been however

seeking to respond to the increasing disaffection of citizens by taking more of the same remedy,

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namely reforms of the representative institutions, in particular electoral systems, political parties,

and parliaments. Those have been associated mostly with and subsumed under reforms aiming at

enhancing the competition dimension of democratic quality. At the most, demands for more

effective citizen participation in the political process have been incorporated into the agenda of

direct democracy. However, referendums, plebiscites and citizens’ initiatives have been

implemented thus far mostly at the local level in established democracies, and their effectiveness is

still contested, as well as the question whether “direct” decisions by the citizens effectively increase

their inclusion in the political process and bring about more democratic results (Merkel 2011).

Moreover and most important, the mechanisms of direct democracy are also circumscribed to

voting (Altman 2011), and therefore encompass a limited form of participation.

A limited form of participation is also comprised by most measurements of democracy and

its quality. Participation is consistently defined by all indices and surveys as meaning mainly voting.

Electoral turnout and exercise of political rights are therefore the main indicators, present in all

measurements. Most indices also include organizing and assembling as measures of participation.

Access to government offices and membership in political parties and civil society associations are

therefore also common indicators; however the widely used Freedom House survey only takes into

account the former type of membership. Fewer indices consider protesting a form of participation.

Examples are the World Values Survey and the European and Latino Barometers, which measure

participation also by asking citizens whether they sign petitions, join boycotts, or attend

demonstrations. The use of direct democracy mechanisms is also rarely comprised by

measurements. The Democracy Barometer is one exception, as it takes participation in referendums

along with elections as a form of effective institutionalized participation. It reduces however the

scope of the concept of participation it advances by considering only demonstrations and petition-

signing as forms of effective non-institutionalized participation.

While a large debate in democratic theory over the last years have revolved around the need

to redefine the concept of representation in order to meet the challenges posed by the theory and

the practice of participatory and deliberative democracy (Castiglione e Warren, 2006; Mansbridge

2003; Urbinati 2006; Urbinati and Warren 2008; Saward 2008), comparative studies and quality of

democracy research have not paid attention to the need to redefine the concept of participation.

Altman and Pérez-Liñán (2002) have proposed a new measure to capture effective participation,

which simply consist in redefining electoral turnout as the number of voters over the voting-age

population. Levine and Molina (2011) measure participation by quantifying electoral participation

(voting turnout), opportunities to vote, participation in political organizations, and representativity

of institutions. Diamond and Morlino (2005) concede that voter turnout rates “captures only one

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aspect of democratic participation”, however their definition of participation does not comprise

much more than the kind of activities facilitated by membership in parties and organizations. Such

concepts of participation amount to a minimalist (Schumpeter 1942) or, at most, pluralist (Dahl

1956) model of democracy. They do not account for the increasing proliferation of participatory and

deliberative experiments worldwide, and they underestimate the impact of such democratic

innovations on the formal institutions of representation.

Participation today amounts to more than voting, assembling, protesting, and lobbying. It

also entails more than monitoring, petitioning and demanding justification. Participation implies

likewise more than just to validate or veto a previously framed policy, such as happens in most

referendums and plebiscites. Participation is not just about choosing candidates and controlling their

performance or influencing decision-making. Participation is also about taking part in the decision-

making process, having a say about policy priority, and deliberating on policy issues. Without taking

into account all of those contemporary dimensions of participation, research on quality of

democracy will be “increasingly subject to the limitations we should expect when nineteenth-

century concepts meet twenty-first century realities” (Warren, 2001).

One does need a more comprehensive and updated concept of participation, and one does

indeed need new and more creative recipes to assess the quality of democracy. An important step

has been recently taken by Katz and Morlino (2013) in a still unpublished research about quality of

Democracy in Latin America. They advance a quite comprehensive definition of participation as “the

entire set of behaviors, be they conventional or unconventional, legal or borderline vis-à-vis legality,

that allows women and men, as individuals or a group, to create, revive or strengthen group

identification or to try to influence the recruitment of, and decisions by, political authorities (the

representative and/or governmental ones) in order to maintain or change the allocation of existing

values.” (2013: 14). This would involve the empirical assessment of conventional (elections,

referendum, membership in political organizations and associations) and non-conventional forms of

participation (strike, demonstrations, riots). Although their definition of the latter is a way too broad

(while encompassing “borderline vis-à-vis legality” forms of participation), Katz and Morlino move

the debate on quality of democracy forward when they consider forms of participation “with regard

to specific policies and deliberative democracy arenas” in their empirical assessment. This is possibly

the first time democratic innovations (with the exception of direct democracy mechanisms such as

referendum) are considered in the participation dimension of measurements of quality of

democracy.

Interestingly enough, Katz and Morlino brought about a more comprehensive concept of

participation precisely in an assessment of the quality of democracy in Latin America. An enlarged

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account of participation seems indeed to be one of the key elements that distinguish recent

democratic reform in the new continent and in the established democracies of Europe and the

United States. In Latin America, non-electoral forms of participation have been increasingly

incorporated within representative institutions in the last years, providing the citizens with

opportunities other than voting to express their preferences and play a role in the policy process.

The degree of institutionalization reached by democratic innovations in some countries turn these

experiments into not so unconventional or borderline forms of participation, as Katz and Morlino

seem to have supposed. In Latin America, governments have been finding creative ways to align

citizens’ demands for participation with opportunities to do so within the realm of representative

democracy and its institutions.

In addition to incorporating direct democracy mechanisms (like referendums, plebiscites and

citizens’ initiatives) into their new Constitutions, several Latin American countries have developed

more far-reaching and effective democratic innovations. Beginning with the participatory budgeting

in in Brazil, those experiments now include local and national policy councils, community councils,

advisory councils, national policy conferences, municipal development councils, participatory urban

planning, and several other local experiments that allow citizens and civil society organizations to

play a larger role in the decision-making process and set the policy agenda along with governments.

Democratic innovations have proliferated in countries as diverse as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,

Ecuador, Mexico and Venezuela, among others not yet examined by the specialized literature. The

impact of citizen participation are already apparent in public expenditure prioritizing, reallocation of

budgetary provisions, management of local resources, policy planning, design and implementation

of local development projects and reforms, and also in the drafting and enactment of laws and

public policies (Cameron, Hershberg and Sharpe 2012; Fung 2011; Selee and Peruzzotti 2009).

Citizens are entitled to deliberate on policy priorities, to suggest specific policies to be adopted by

their respective governments, or even to propose new areas of policymaking (Pogrebinschi and

Santos 2011; Pogrebinschi 2012; Pogrebinschi and Samuels forthcoming).

The potential of such democratic innovations to achieve equality is remarkable. Experiments

like the participatory budgeting have resulted in greater social equality through a more equitable

redistribution of public goods, and increased the levels of participation among disadvantaged

groups, the less educated, and lower-income citizens (Avritzer 2002; Baiocchi 2003; Gret and

Sintomer 2005; Sousa Santos 2005; Wampler 2007). Other participatory innovations like the national

policy conferences have ensured the recognition and inclusion of minority groups by promoting

rights and developing corresponding policies to address matters of gender, race, ethnicity, and other

cultural minority issues (Pogrebinschi 2013b). Democratic innovations give the voiceless a voice

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(Cameron, Hershberg and Sharpe 2012), like indigenous populations that have been reintegrated

into the political process and have engaged public life, taking an active role on the new participatory

design of the Andes region (Laserna 2009; Van Cott 2008). The “democracies with adjectives” (Collier

and Levitsky 1997) that emerged in the third wave of democratization are being progressively

displaced. The “delegative” (O’Donnel 1993), “defective” (Merkel 2004) or “pseudo” (Diamond, Linz

and Lipset 1989) democracies of Latin American are gradually giving way to new, experimental forms

of governance, which can potentially provide new and more creative recipes to enhance the quality

of democracy.

Among the findings of Katz and Morlino in their recent assessment of quality of democracy

in Latin America is the connection between participation and equality, that is, the fact that higher

participation can imply higher equality – or, more specifically, “a different kind of even non-

conventional participation that witness the presence of a lively civil society may push toward a

stronger equality” (2013: 29). Given that their measurement made use of a conception of

participation as broad as to include democratic innovations, it seems plausible to suppose that the

latter play at least some role in bringing more equality.

Although causalities are still to be properly investigated, one must notice that not only

equality, but also levels of political trust have been remarkably rising in Latin America in the last

decade. According to the Latinobarometer, in 2003, 19% of Latin American citizens were said to trust

their governments, while seven years later, in 2010, this proportion had jumped to 45%. The level of

trust in parliaments and political parties has also increased steeply in Latin America in recent years:

in 2003, 17% of citizens trusted their national parliaments, while by 2010 that figure has doubled to

34%. Trust in political parties increased from 11% to 23% over the same seven-year period,

exhibiting very impressive growth. Considering that the third wave of democratization started in

Latin America over three decades ago, the significant and rapid rise in trust levels in the past few

years may not be simply explained by the expected ordinary consolidation of political institutions.

What have happened in the course of Latin America’s consolidation process in this period

and has not been anticipated by third-wave scholars was the “left turn”, as it is called the series of

electoral victories of several leftists’ governments in both local and national levels throughout the

continent starting in 1998. Those various newly-elected governments manifested clear

programmatic concerns with participation and civil society and have created and institutionalized an

expressive number of democratic innovations. An enlarged concept of participation has even been

inscribed in the new constitutions of some countries, where direct democracy, participatory and

deliberative innovations have been institutionalized as means to correct some of the alleged failures

of representative institutions and to achieve social equality (Pogrebinschi 2013a).

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If, in order to respond to democratic deficits, governments must achieve an effective

balance between citizens’ demands for participation and capacities of political institutions to fulfill

those demands, then institutions that manage to provide citizens with more opportunities for

participation beyond elections may perform better in measurements and bring about more

democratic quality. This is not to say, for example, that political parties have their role diminished;

au contraire, they can also make use of the new channels of representation to strengthen their role,

that is to represent, by benefiting from opportunities outside of elections to know the preferences

of their voters (and also of potential new voters) and to do that more dynamically (as voters’

preferences may change between elections). This is just one example of how participation can

eventually reinforce competition and responsiveness, and of how democratic innovations may help

improving the quality of democracy.

Democratic Innovations and Quality of Democracy: An Analytical Framework

So far I have claimed that measurements of quality of democracy must encompass a broader

and more updated definition of participation in order to live up to political changes of contemporary

societies, among which are the increasing adoption of democratic innovations. Although the latter

reflects a worldwide trend, they seem to have found in Latin America a quite fertile soil to germinate

roots – even if countless fruits have already grown in dozens of other countries in different

continents, as it is the case with the participatory budgeting (Sintomer, Herzberg, Alegretti, and

Röcke 2010). When contrasted to democratic innovations evolved in Europe (see Geissel 2012,

Newton 2012, and Smith 2009 for an overview), for example, those flourished in Latin America (see

Avritzer 2002, Cameron, Hershberg and Sharpe 2012, Selee and Peruzzotti 2009, and Pogrebinschi

2013a for an overview) offer distinguishing features, which can provide useful insights regarding

their endurance, impact and potential for replication – important characteristics if we are to assume

that democratic innovations call for a broader concept of participation with which to measure

democratic quality.

First, Latin American democratic innovations tend to display some degree of

institutionalization, that is, informal practices have been increasingly turned into more formal

institutions or incorporated within the existing political institutions of representation. When

democratic innovations are not inscribed in laws or constitutions, they tend to be backed up by

governmental policies or political parties programmatic commitments. Second, they enjoy some

degree of representativeness, as they tend to operate within or along with representative

institutions, and are commonly implemented or sponsored or by elected governments with varying

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degrees of input from civil society. They also frequently revolve around one issue or policy, what

allows for consistent group organization and therefore the representation of collective interests, in

contrast to individual ones. Third, Latin America’s democratic innovations tend to be open for

participation at least in their inital stage, when they involve more than one. Although self-selection

seems to take place in most cases, evidence suggests lower-income and lower-educated citizens are

among those who participate more. Fourth, democratic innovations developed in Latin America tend

to allow citizens to play a role in the policy-making process; that is, they usually incorporate citizens

into at least one of the stages of the policy cycle, more frequently agenda setting or implementation.

Fifth, innovations in Latin America have been revealing that democratic participation is not limited to

the local level and can work well also in the national level. That democratic innovations can impact

on national level politics is very important if we want to assess their potential to activate other

dimensions of quality of democracy. Lastly, these democratic innovations tend not to be merely

consultative, as several do yield decisions as a conclusion of deliberative processes, however those

decisions are not always binding.

Assuming that those features of Latin American democratic innovations explain to some

extent their enduring experience and impact, I propose a set of criteria informed by them as a

backdrop against which democratic innovations can be assessed. These criteria also provide

institutional design options for the implementation of new experiments, ensuring that democratic

innovations are replicable. If innovations are to expand the representative channels and impact on

democratic quality, they are expected to match to some (varying) extent these criteria. This equals

to say that at least some degree of institutionalization is expected from democratic innovations if

they are to be considered in measurements of democratic quality. In other words, democratic

innovations are expected to evolve from an informal practice to a more formal institutional design,

resembling what Avritzer (2009) called “participatory institutions”. However, the institutionalization

of democratic innovations does not undermine their experimental character. Institutionalization

does not prevent nor hinder experimentation. But it does raise its chance of impact.

Table 1: Criteria for Assessing the Degree of Institutionalization of Democratic Innovations

Criteria Indicators

Formalization DI is backed up by constitution, legislation or governmental policy

Representativeness DI operates within or together with the elected bodies or officials

Inclusiveness DI is open for participation to some extent, precluding social selection

Scope DI involves participation in at least one of the stages of the policy cycle

Scale Design of the DI does not limit it exclusively to the local level

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Decisiveness DI yields decisions, however those are not necessarily binding

The greater the extent to which the criteria presented in Table 1 are fulfilled, the greater are

the opportunities provided by democratic innovations for citizens to participate, and the higher are

the chances that their preferences are transformed into policies, that is, impacting on decision-

making. Those criteria should not be addressed in a binary fashion, but rather as gradations. For

instance, the scale criterion does not imply that a democratic innovation should take place at the

national, and not only at the local level. Rather, it suggests that the design of a given democratic

innovation should not limit it to take place only in the local level, allowing it eventually to scale up.

Formalization, representativeness, inclusiveness, scope, scale and decisiveness are not criteria to

evaluate democratic innovations as such, but rather criteria to assess experiments that should be

taken into account on quality of democracy research. In other words, not all participatory or

deliberative (or other sort of) experiments possibly labeled as democratic innovations are relevant

for the purpose of having their impact on quality of democracy measured, precisely because it is

these criteria what make them relevant enough to have an impact at all.

Democratic innovations proliferate across the continents with varying degrees of

institutionalization and impact. However, the more an innovation is institutionalized, the higher are

its chances of impact precisely because participatory, deliberative or direct democracy are not

categories that stand outside of or compete with representative democracy. Democratic innovations

expand the opportunities of participation beyond elections, and that not equals to say they do that

outside representation. Democratic innovations expand the channels of representation by providing

citizens with more opportunities to participate, and that’s why they matter for measurements of

quality of democracy.

The more comprehensive and updated concept of participation advocated in this paper is

therefore one that takes into account its non-electoral, however institutionalized (or formal),

dimension. It does not equal what Katz and Morlino (2013), for example, term unconventional

participation. And it does not equal informal modes of participation such as protests,

demonstrations, occupations, sit-ins, petition signing and the like. The opportunities for participation

created by democratic innovations are expected to have an impact to the extent to which they are

institutionalized, that is turned into an integral part of the larger whole of representative democracy.

Measurements of participation in quality of democracy indices should not just take into account the

volume of participation, but the varieties of forms and of degrees of institutionalization of

democratic innovations. Assuming the latter to be at least to some extent institutionalized, the

opportunities they provide citizens with consist in taking part in at least one of the stages of the

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public policy cycle, that is, problem definition, agenda setting, policy development, implementation

and policy evaluation. The more stages attained, the greater the degree of participation achieved by

a democratic innovation, and the greater its chances to have an impact.

Assessing the Feasibility, Inclusiveness and Effectiveness of Democratic Innovations

Once (to some degree) institutionalized, the impact of democratic innovations can be

assessed by means of three dimensions: feasibility, inclusiveness and effectiveness. These

dimensions differ from other criteria proposed to evaluate democratic innovations, as for example

those proposed by Smith (2009), Geissel (2012) or Geissel and Mayne (2013), in that they have been

designed with the intent to assess (at least partially) institutionalized forms of non-electoral

participation and their eventual impact on measurements of quality of democracy. While Smith

(2009) focus on the goods to be realized by democratic innovations (inclusiveness, popular control,

considered judgment and transparency) and Geissel and Mayne (2013) concentrate on the qualities

of the citizens (political capacities and democratic commitments) that take advantage of the

opportunities offered by the latters, I focus not exclusively in the output nor in the input, but on the

institutional design of democratic innovations – which does not equal to say I focus on the

procedures (e.g. quality of deliberation).

To some extent closer to Fung and Wright’s (2003) design properties of what they call

empowered participatory governance (devolution, centralized supervision and coordination, and

state-centered, not voluntaristic), the three dimensions I propose aim at assessing whether an

innovation can work, does work, and may impact on democracy. If a democratic innovation is

feasible, then it can be replicated, that is, it might work in different contexts, and the criteria

provided in table 2 may allow for comparative studies among diverse experiments or diverse

countries or cities that implement them. If a democratic innovation is inclusive, then it does fulfill its

aim of bringing citizens in and allowing them to deliberate on policies that may affect their lives. In

this regard, the criteria provided in table 3 may allow assessments of how democratic innovations

are indeed participatory and deliberative, as they usually aim and claim to be. Finally, if a democratic

innovation is effective, then it does somehow impact on democracy, bringing about effects on

representation, policy-making, and equality. The criteria displayed in table 4 may allow case study

and comparative research to assess the impact of democratic innovations not isolated from the

representative whole in which they are parts.

In order to assess feasibility, inclusiveness and effectiveness as the three dimensions of a

democratic innovation, I will propose an analytical framework developed accordingly to Goertz’s

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(2006) methodology of “three levels concepts”, namely, the main concept, the secondary level and

the indicator/data level. The third level of each concept – that is, of each dimension of democratic

innovations – is quite relevant for research on this area that inevitably links theory with empirics, as

it refers to evidence, that is, data that can indicate the fulfillment of each of the secondary levels

proposed for each concept – or in the case of this paper, each of the three dimensions of democratic

innovations.

Beginning with the first dimension, feasibility, the concept refers to the rules and procedures

of democratic innovations. As presented in table 2, at the secondary level it seeks to identify the

levels of openness, stateness and formality of democratic innovations. The assumption is that in

order to be feasible – and therefore work not only under specific conditions given by a particular

context – democratic innovations should be open to participation, engage state and civil society

actors, and be backed up by legislation. Saying that democratic innovations should be open to

participation does not imply that they should not use a method of recruitment like random selection

to gather participants. Experiments using (random) selection have proved to be feasible (as it is the

cases of the British Columbia Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform and the Icelandic Constitutional

Council). Stateness, for its turn, does not imply a top-down process that precludes bottom-up ones,

but rather a combination of both through the conjoint engagement of state and civil society actors.

Finally, different types of legislation and policies may back up a democratic innovation, and the

important thing here is that it is enabled to be replicated and have continuity.

In what concerns the openness, evidence at the indicator level should determine, among

other eventual variables, who can participate and in what ways, and how open the process is to

citizens and civil society organizations. The data to be assessed here should refer to access rules,

publicity, as well as rules and criteria of selection of participants, when that is the case. As for the

stateness, the indicator level should capture whether the experiment is organized by the state or by

civil society; if by the latter, then it should indicate if alone or along with the state, and to what

extent the state supports the innovation. Data should therefore indicate the degree of state and civil

society involvement and support, the degree of social capital and of civil society political

organization, as well as the rules and procedures of convening and implementing the innovation.

Lastly, formality at the secondary level of the feasibility dimension aims at assessing whether the

democratic innovation is backed up by law or depends on the will of governments and/or political

parties. The evidence provided should comprise rules and other legal acts that indicate the

enforcement and implementation’s frequency of the innovation, as well as its ability to be expanded

and replicated.

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Table 2: Criteria for Measuring the Feasibility of Democratic Innovations

Main Concept Secondary Level Indicator Level

Feasibility Openness

Access rules, publicity, rules and criteria of

selection of participants

Stateness

Degree of State and civil society involvement and

support, level of civil society organization and

social capital, convene rules and procedures

Formality

Enactment of rules and legal acts of enforcement,

frequency, degree of expansion and replication

The second dimension for assessing the impact of democratic innovations is inclusiveness,

criteria that refers to the opportunities for participation made available by a given democratic

innovation. As displayed in table 3, at the secondary level three criteria are assessed: participation,

deliberation and bindingness. The assumption here is that democratic innovations allow for a more

inclusive participation than the one achieved by elections, making room for low-educated and low-

income citizens (as achieved by participatory budgeting in Brazil, for example), as well as for a larger

presence of minority groups such as indigenous peoples (as accomplished by community

organizations in Bolivia, for example). In this same line, it is expected that deliberation enables

democratic innovations to transform the preferences of citizens, providing a more dynamic arena for

the expression of preferences than the electoral one (planning cells in Germany, as well as

deliberative pools in general, are examples of that). Lastly, participation and deliberation are

inclusive inasmuch as they aim at a decision or conclusion, even if those are merely consultative and

do not bind public authorities.

On the indicator level, the participation criterion assesses who participates, whether the

participation of historically excluded and disadvantaged groups has been assured, whether citizens

participate alone or in groups, and whether underrepresented groups take part in the innovation.

Data should therefore indicate the absolute and relative numbers of participants accordingly to

social class, gender, education and other social and cultural indicators. In regard to deliberation,

what is at stake is the extent to which democratic innovations facilitate agenda-setting, policy-

framing, as well as deliberation, monitoring or evaluation of policies. Here the indicators are, among

others, organizational rules and procedures, opportunities for expressing and changing preferences,

as well as the quality of deliberation itself, when such is involved. Finally, bindingness stands at the

secondary level as the criteria for gauging the channels through which deliberations are

communicated to representative institutions, as well as whether deliberations end up on decisions,

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and eventually on binding decisions. At the indicator level, data should be analyzed to determine if

deliberation is consultative or not, if its results are mere recommendations or binding decisions, if

there are rules ensuring the communication and consideration of deliberative results to

representative institutions and other governmental bodies.

Table 3: Criteria for Measuring the Inclusiveness of Democratic Innovations

Main Concept Secondary Level Indicator Level

Inclusiveness Participation

Absolute and relative numbers of participants,

accordingly to social class, gender, education level

and other social and cultural indicators.

Deliberation

Organizational rules and procedures, opportunities

for expressing and changing preferences, quality of

deliberation.

Bindingness

Binding or consultative results, rules ensuring the

communication and consideration of the results

The third and last dimension is effectiveness, concept that refers to the success and effects

of democratic innovations. On the secondary conceptual level it comprises policy-making,

representation and social equality, as displayed in table 4. The idea here is that democratic

innovations are effective if to some extent they impact on policies, activate old or engender new

forms of representation, and deliver some form of political and social equality. Again, those criteria

are not binary, different democratic innovations may match them to different degrees, and one

same democratic innovation may match them differently accordingly to variables like context and

time. One example is the participatory budgeting, which achieved variable levels of efficacy in

diverse countries (Goldfrank 2007) and within one same country (Avritzer 2009; Wampler 2009).

As for the first criterion, policy-making, one should assess whether laws and policies reflect

citizen’s deliberations and decisions, an indicator that democratic innovations may increase

congruence. The data to be gauged include bills introduced in the Legislature as a result of citizens’

deliberations, corresponding laws passed that match citizens’ demands, and policies enacted and

implemented following citizens’ deliberations. In what concerns representation, such criteria alludes

in the indicator level to how political parties engage with democratic innovations, as well as to

whether party membership increases or decreases as a result of such engagement, whether

interests groups and lobbies take advantage of democratic innovations or are undermined by them,

and whether civil society organizations, social movements or less organized groups and individual

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citizens take over representative roles due to the democratic innovation. Data must be analyzed to

gauge, among others, the mobilization of political parties and their members, the volume of

supporters involved, the involvement of lobbies and interest groups, as well as the discourses of civil

society organizations and social movements. Lastly, equality stands as the third criteria, alluding to

whether a more equitable distribution of social goods is achieved through the democratic

innovation, whether it facilitates access to primary goods, whether redistributive policies are

favored, whether resources are reallocated to the benefit of disadvantaged groups, and whether

rights and policies are enacted leading to the inclusion of minority groups. Evidence should be

provided at the indicator level concerning access to primary goods, the provision of education and

health among other basic public services, the enactment of rights and inclusive policies addressing

disadvantaged and minority groups.

Table 4: Criteria for Measuring the Effectiveness of Democratic Innovations

Main Concept Secondary Level Indicator Level

Effectiveness Policy-making

Number of bills introduced, number of laws and

policies enacted following citizens deliberations

Representation

Mobilization of political parties and their

members, number of supporters involved,

involvement of lobbies and interest groups

Equality

Access to primary goods, education and health

services, enactment of rights and inclusive policies

Assessing the Impact of Democratic Innovations on Quality of Democracy

Once they are feasible, inclusive and effective, democratic innovations can impact on the

quality of democracy. More specifically, my supposition is that the opportunities for participation

they engender may enhance political competition and government responsiveness, as well as lead to

increase on equality. Before moving to how the proposed analytical framework assesses such

supposition, I have to provide definitions of competition and responsiveness. I make use of Dahl’s

(1972) definition of competition, that is, organized contestation by political parties and organized

interest groups through regular, free, and fair elections. One of the hypotheses that can be verified

with the analytical framework is whether democratic innovations induce the creation of new

organized groups as well as empower those already existing, in particular political parties. The

constitution of new groups and empowerment of old parties can raise the level of contestation in a

17

political system. Such a perspective allows the dismissal of trade-offs between competition and

participation. Concerning responsiveness, I adopt Powell’s (2004) definition, namely, the ability of

democracies to translate citizens’ preferences into policies. Translating preference into policy can be

done through elected representatives, competitive political parties, lobbies and interest groups; but

it can also be achieved through democratic innovations. The Brazilian National Public Policy

Conferences are a seminal example of how it happens in practice.

A more comprehensive and updated conceptualization of participation as a dimension of the

quality of democracy should make clear its strong connections with responsiveness, competition and

equality, other crucial dimensions of the concept. Democratic innovations play a role here showing

how participation and competition, and therefore higher democratic quality, will not come through

the representative channels of elections and parties alone. The question is: how to, on the one hand,

achieve higher participation through non-electoral channels and, on the other hand, use those

channels to improve competitiveness of political systems, responsiveness of governments and

equality of societies?

The suggestion here is that, as democratic innovations turn opportunities for participation

higher, participation itself may increase the opportunities for competition and the chances of

responsiveness, and these two together will bring about more equality. Relevant is therefore also to

assess the ability of non-electoral participation to make the representative channels themselves

more competitive and responsive. Below I will propose an analytical framework, which ultimately

can be used to verify the following hypothesis:

H1: The greater the participation, the more competitive are political systems;

H2: The greater the participation, the more responsive are governments;

H3: The greater the participation, the greater is social equality;

H4: The greater the participation, the higher the quality of democracy.

The proposed analytical framework still follows Goertz’s (2006) on the three levels of

concept-building and comprises three dimensions: competition, responsiveness and equality. The

dimension of competition comprises three secondary levels, namely, plurality, information and

multi-dimensionality. Those concepts refer to the theories of pluralism and political information, as

well as to multidimensional spatial models for the analysis of legislatures and governments. The

plurality criteria seeks to assess the extent to which groups organize, mobilize, and become

empowered as a result of democratic innovations. The information criteria aims at assessing the

extent to which democratic innovations favor “cheap talk” (Crawford and Sobel 1982), raising the

18

level of information for members of parliament and government officials regarding citizen’s

preferences, thereby solving informational problems, as well as the extent to which democratic

innovations work as “third-party speakers” (Lupia and McCubbins 1998), providing members of

parliament and government officials with information that can raise the level of certainty of their

decisions regarding the consequences of policies to be adopted. Finally, the criteria of multi-

dimensionality helps one to verify the extent to which democratic innovations can introduce new

issues to the policy agenda and increase the multidimensionality of legislative politics, so that policy-

making is not reduced to disputes between coalition and opposition parties (or left or right

platforms) in a one-dimensional space.

Table 5: Criteria for Assessing the Impact of Democratic Innovations on Competition

Main Concept Secondary Level Indicators

Competition

Plurality

Creation of new organized groups and empowerment of

already existing parties and groups

Information Ability of participatory innovations to solve information

problems and facilitate decision making, raising the

level of information of Legislatures and governments

regarding citizens’ preferences

Multi-Dimensionality

Ability of participatory innovations to enhance the

multidimensionality of governments and Legislatures by

introducing new issues to the policy agenda; ability to

avoid that political parties’ operating exclusively in a

single dimension and therefore lose members and

voters

The concept of responsiveness is “predicated on the prior emission of messages by citizens”

(Manin, Przeworski, and Stokes 1999:9). A government is responsive “if it adopts policies that are

signaled as preferred by citizens” (Manin, Przeworski, and Stokes 1999:9). During elections, those

signals imply voting for particular platforms (regardless the phenomenon of electoral volatility). If by

means of elections, voters cannot justifiably expect that parties would do what they proposed, by

means of extra-electoral democratic innovations citizens may expect that parties do more than what

they proposed before elections. They can expect that policies signaled by (traditional) non-voters are

endorsed by parties seeking (future) new voters. Democratic innovations increase the information

available to elected representatives on citizens’ preferred policies, as the latters have more

19

opportunities for signaling the policies they prefer. Furthermore, democratic innovations are more

dynamic and frequent as elections, and therefore can work as a means through which parties can

more rapidly grasp changes on the preferences of their constituencies.

In the proposed framework, responsiveness is a dimension that comprises three secondary

levels, namely, policy impact, issue congruence and substantive representation. As for the policy

impact, what is to be assessed is the ability of governments to implement policies that translate

citizens’ preferences. In what concerns the issue congruence, evidence must gauge the degree of

congruence between policies and outcomes of democratic innovations, that is, of resulting

deliberations and decisions expressing citizens’ preferences. Finally, the substantive representation

criteria seeks to evaluate the extent to which democratic innovations make representative

institutions become more sensitive to the demands of minority and other under-represented

cultural groups, once those groups engage on the new non-electoral arenas in order to raise their

voices and make their preferences heard.

Table 6: Criteria for Assessing the Impact of Democratic Innovations on Responsiveness

Main Concept Secondary Level Indicators

Responsiveness

Policy Impact

Implementation of policies that translate citizens’

preferences

Issue Congruence

Enactment of laws and policies which are congruent with

the issues deliberated in democratic innovations

Substantive

Representation

Ability of democratic innovations to stimulate the

representation of minority groups and other cultural groups

that have special needs and demands given their status of

members of such groups (such as women, indigenous

people, and other racial and ethnic minorities)

The last dimension that allows one to assess the impact of democratic innovations on quality

of democracy concerns equality. The proposed analytical framework understands inclusion as

meaning equality, assuming that democratic innovations can include citizens and groups that face

social inequality for various reasons including that of being politically excluded, that is

underrepresented or misrepresented. This concept of equality comprises three secondary levels for

analysis, namely redistribution, enactment of rights and minority and social policies. As for

redistribution, evidence should indicate how democratic innovations impact on the allocation of

state resources, the delivery of public goods, the access to public services, the reallocation of

20

budgetary provisions, and the prioritizing of public expenditure. The enactment of rights is the

second criteria, and it seeks to assess the draft and enactment of legal and constitutional rights

recognizing the identity of new social groups and of minority and historically marginalized groups.

Finally, minorities and social policies stands as a criteria to be examined through indicators such as

the formulation and implementation of policies addressing historically underrepresented minority

groups, as well as the formulation and implementation of policies envisaging the reduction of social

inequality.

Table 7: Criteria for Assessing the Impact of Democratic Innovations on Equality

Main Concept Secondary Level Indicators

Equality

Redistribution

Allocation of state resources, delivery of public goods,

access to public services, reallocation of budgetary

provisions, public expenditure prioritizing

Enactment of Rights

Draft and enactment of legal and constitutional rights

recognizing the identity of new social groups and of

minority and historically marginalized groups

Minority and Social

Policies

Formulation and implementation of policies addressing

historically underrepresented minority groups; Formulation

and implementation of policies envisaging the reduction of

social inequality

If democratic innovations can empirically prove to impact on one or more of these three

dimensions then they can increase the quality of democracy. More specifically, if non-electoral

forms of participation can increase the competitiveness of political systems, and/or the

responsiveness of governments, and/or the equality of society, then participation is the key

dimension of quality of democracy. A more comprehensive concept of participation is therefore

crucial for both evaluations of democratic innovations and their impact, and assessments of the

quality of democracy.

New Recipes of Political Reform, New Models of Democracy?

Rather than attempting to improve democratic deficits solely by consolidating

representative institutions – that is, reforming electoral systems and political parties, for example –,

several Latin American governments have started to institutionalize democratic innovations that

21

allow citizens to further participate and play a larger role in the decision-making process. Those

participatory reforms indicate that governments have redesigned political institutions in order to

create more opportunities for citizens to take part in the decision-making process, experimenting

with democratic innovations that expand the capacities of representative institutions to match

citizens’ demands. When new and broader opportunities for participation are created within the

boundaries of representative democracy and institutionalized by governments as means to improve

its institutions and correct their purported deficits, a new path of reform seem to be opened.

Political institutions are adapted to fit citizens’ demands for more participation, while more

participation can imply more responsive institutions and more equal policy outcomes.

Whether the experimental forms of combining representation and participation positively

affect citizen’s satisfaction with democracy is an open, empirical question. The democratic

innovations recently introduced in Latin America are certainly not the only possible causal

explanation for the sudden rise in levels of political trust in the continent. A number of other

concurrent factors have probably contributed, like economic growth and significant decreases in

poverty and inequality, just to mention a couple. However, citizens’ expectations towards

democracy do seem to be increasingly absorbed by representative institutions through participatory

mechanisms, and that may play at least a role in the improved democratic performance of Latin

America.

Expanding and institutionalizing democratic innovations that increase participation beyond

elections is a recipe of political reform that should be taken into account if one accepts that what is

often called a crisis of democracy is actually a situation of misalignment between citizens’ demands

and political institutions’ supply. Interestingly enough, such recipe is at first made available by the

new democracies of Latin America to the old, established democracies of the North. Whether

democratic innovations can strengthen representative institutions, raise citizens’ political

satisfaction and increase the quality of democracy, are questions that worth to be empirically

answered. This paper has aimed to provide some tools for that.

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