Innovations in democratic governance: how does citizen participation contribute to a better democracy?

Abstract

Over recent decades, many countries have gained experience with referendums, citizens’ forums, citizens’ juries, collaborative governance, participatory budgeting, and other models in which citizens have a more direct say. Citizen participation is usually considered a valuable element of democratic citizenship and democratic decision-making. Many theorists claim that citizen participation has positive effects on the quality of democracy. This article examines the probability of these claims for a large number of cases in different Western countries. Four types of democratic innovation are distinguished and evaluated according to the extent to which they realize positive effects on democracy. The findings show that citizen involvement has a number of positive effects on democracy: it increases issue knowledge, civic skills, and public engagement, and it contributes to the support for decisions among the participants. The analysis also makes it clear that the contribution of participation to democracy differs according to type of democratic innovations; deliberative forums and surveys appear to be better at promoting the exchange of arguments, whereas referendums and participatory policy making projects are better at giving citizens influence on policy making and involving more people. But, as I try to argue, since these positive effects are perceptible only to those taking part and the number of participants is often small or particular groups are underrepresented, the benefits to individual democratic citizenship are far more conclusive than the benefits to democracy as a whole. Points for practitioners This article distinguishes four types of democratic innovation and, for each type, examines the effects of citizen participation on the quality of democracy. It offers a systematic analysis of the contribution of participation to elements of democracy, such as influence on decision-making, inclusion, skills and virtues, deliberation, and legitimacy. The analysis points to a number of positive effects on democracy, but the findings also show that the contribution of participation to democracy differs according to the type of democratic innovations.

The Impact of Fiscal Decentralization on Accountability, Economic Freedom, and Political and Civil Liberties in the Americas

“…local governments to interest-group capture and finding that the extent of relative capture at the local level may in fact be context-and system-specific; Blair (2000), analyzing how participation and accountability affect democratic local governance (DLG) in six developing countries, and finding that both show significant potential for enhancing DLG; Fisman and Gatti (2002), analyzing the relationship between decentralization and the extent of rent extraction by private parties, with findings suggesting a strong negative relationship between expenditure decentralization and corruption; Rodden (2002), highlighting the importance of self-autonomy in subnational governments and finding that long-term balanced budgets among subnational governments are more likely when (1) the central government imposes borrowing restrictions or (2) when subnational governments have both wide-ranging taxing and borrowing autonomy; Faguet (2004), concentrating on Bolivia and examining whether decentralization increases the responsiveness of public investment to local needs; Weitz-Shapiro (2008), showing that in Argentina there is an important positive link between local government performance and citizen system support; Weingast (2009) analyzing second generation fiscal federalism and showing the importance of fiscal incentives for producing local economic prosperity; Michels (2011) showing that citizen involvement increases in decentralized governments, and this has a number of positive effects on democracy: it strengthens issue knowledge, civic skills, and public engagement, and hence it magnifies the basic liberties of constituents in decentralized regions; Escobar-Lemmon and Ross (2014) focusing on Colombia and showing that administrative and fiscal decentralization improve perceptions of accountability among citizens; Kyander (2014), analyzing whether political and fiscal decentralization affect democratic quality and citizen participation in politics; and Islam (2015), focusing on Bangladesh and showing that strong local governments deepen the democratic process by ensuring participatory development.…”

G1000: ervaringen met burgertoppen

“…Hoewel elke benadering weer andere accenten legt, kunnen we een aantal democratische waarden onderscheiden (voor een nadere uitwerking hiervan, zie Smith, 2009;Michels, 2011aMichels, , 2011b. Burgerparticipatie:…”

Citizen Participation in Medium-Term Local Development Plan in Indonesia

“…Research by Michels [4] distinguished four types of democratic participation: referendum, deliberative forum, collaborative order, and participative budgeting. He explained the effect of public participation in democratic quality and offered a systematic analysis on the contribution of democratic element's participation, like the effect on decision making, inclusion, skill and good deeds, discussion, and legitimacy.…”