Political innovations aim to strengthen democracy but few connect well to the institutionalized democratic context. This paper explores how political innovations can be successfully embedded in existing democratic systems. It builds upon both the literature on political innovation and on new democratic arrangements and studies a practice of aleatoric democracyusing the lottery instead of elections to select representativesin the Dutch City of Utrecht. The case study shows how the idealist logic of improving democracy and the realist logic of realizing specific political goals intertwine to get the political innovation accepted by the institutionalized democratic system.

To mitigate the enormous and asymmetric economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU has adopted an unprecedented €750 billion fiscal transfer programme, financed by joint member state liabilities. The highly contested decision pitted ‘frugal’ northern member states against ‘profligate’ southern member states. However, do citizens from northern countries view EU transfers as unfavourably as their governmental positions suggest? This article focuses on the crucial case of the Netherlands, whose government has become the assertive leader of the ‘frugal’ coalition. We test COVID-19 specific explanations based on a large-scale survey conducted at the height of the pandemic. Our analysis suggests that citizens who experience the non-material health and social effects of the pandemic more directly are more supportive of fiscal transfers than those to whom the pandemic is more abstract, whereas those who experience negative financial effects and those who believe that COVID-19 is a conspiracy are less supportive.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are a primary tool for conserving marine biodiversity. The literature presents a scattered picture regarding the extent to which co-management can be considered valuable. In this study we examine, what conditions are for co-management to make a contribution to conserving marine ecosystems (e.g., stopping coral bleaching and safeguarding fish populations). By combining data on MPA management practices with a novel source of global biodata collected by citizens (ReefCheck), we demonstrate that if co-management is part of a formal governmental strategy, coral reefs show up to 86% fewer bleached colonies and up to 12.2 times larger fish populations than co-managed MPAs lacking formalized governmental support.

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