Participatory Democratic Innovations in Europe

doi:10.2307/j.ctvdf0gdc

Cited by 20 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…The research observations confirm the theoretical assumptions that the local community is a favorable setting for democratic innovations (Crepaz & Steiner 2013;Geissel & Joas 2013;Loughlin, Hendriks & Lindström 2012;Nabatchi & Blomgren Amsler 2014). The considerable responsibilities of local government for implementing public policies, in combination with the lower level of system complexity, create good conditions for the interventions of scholars and practitioners working together.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Model Solutions and Pragmatism in Developing ICT for Public Consultations

Przybylska

2021

Journal of Deliberative Democracy

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The focus of this article is on the process of developing the inDialogue software within the loop of communication between researchers and the clerks who organize public consultations in local governments. The software was created in response to problems diagnosed during studies on the quality of public consultations in Poland. The design supports transparent, thoughtful, and collaborative planning for public consultations in town or city halls, to create an environment conducive to informed and inclusive opinion formation among citizens. Within the project, a pragmatic approach means some degree of openness among researchers and designers in negotiating the features of the software with institutional users. Testing inDialogue in nine municipalities, we asked the following questions: (1) How do the clerks respond to the model of public consultations that inDialogue implements? and (2) How do they build a relationship with a project that intervenes in their routines? Analysis of the data from the evaluation questionnaires shows that although, overall, the clerks gave the highest rating for the software's ability to introduce order into the process of public consultations, they often complained that the features behind the structuration effect were time consuming. Depending on the city or town hall, more weight was given to one or another aspect of the tradeoff. No less important for the institutionalization of deliberative public consultations is the controversy over registration and verification, and consequently, the recruitment of participants. In the article, this is discussed in the context of the ambiguities in the law, and the different values that the various local governments attribute to participation. Moreover, the study demonstrated that prior experience in public consultations combined with an openness to experimenting, a repertoire of skills in communication and data analysis, a motivation to join the project, the length and depth of collaboration with researchers, and the direct involvement of a decision maker all affected clerks' comprehension and acceptance of the use of inDialogue.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Model Solutions and Pragmatism in Developing ICT for Public Consultations

Przybylska

2021

Journal of Deliberative Democracy

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“…The neoliberal scenario also decisively influences the dynamics of democratic innovation . The components of democratic innovation can be traced to seven areas (Smith, 2009;Geissel and Joas, 2013): inclusiveness, institutionalization, popular control, social legitimation, transparency, efficiency, and transferability. These components present several problematic issues: What kind of inclusiveness is referred to?…”

Section: The Neoliberal Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These components present several problematic issues: What kind of inclusiveness is referred to? Is it connected with an idea of meaningful participation (Geissel and Joas, 2013), or is it limited to activating access dynamics? In institutionalization processes, are citizens beneficiaries of services provided, or do they also become protagonists in the construction of the public agenda?…”

Section: The Neoliberal Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The distinction between inclusive and meaningful participatory processes (Geissel and Joas, 2013) also constitutes a fundamental element in hybrid participatory processes because the intersection of these two processes makes it possible to assign "value" to onsite and digital participation and, above all, make reconfigured liminal spaces attractive from both an organizational and unconventional/informal perspective. An initial explanatory scheme is summarized below in Figure 1.…”

Section: Participatory Processes In Liminal Contextsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social and digital vulnerabilities: The role of participatory processes in the reconfiguration of urban and digital space

Antonucci

Sorice²,

Volterrani³

2022

Front. Polit. Sci.

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In the Italian context, political and social participation in the urban dimension has experienced innovations to broaden the inclusion of citizens in public choices relating to citylife and to urban renovation. Participation found in the city a relevant space to experiment with innovation in the relationship between institutions and citizens, many initiatives advanced and developed over the years have had a powerful lever in technology: participatory budgets, consultations, public-private-non-profit partnerships. In other cases, specifically in peripheral realities, urban innovation has turned out to be detached from digital infrastructures and has benefited, rather, from the social infrastructures in the area. Civic committees, community foundations, collaboration agreements between citizens and authorities, and local community development experiences developed in peripheral contexts. Regenerating urban spaces is a political objective proposed with increasing emphasis by institutional bodies at the various levels of governance. Environmental, economic, social and urban planning intersect and overlap and often projects related to urban planning “on paper” prevail over issues related to urban communities “on territories”. Without adequate processes of participation and subjectivity of citizens living in urban contexts, no model of “urban renaissance” appears fully deployed, resulting in participatory processes that—at best—only allow for access logics in a neoliberal perspective. Through a qualitative methodology, the paper aims at presenting and investigating six case studies in major Italian cities (Rome, Naples, Milan, Turin, Florence, Reggio Calabria), in which democratic innovation and experimentation in civic engagement spread from the digital capital of citizens and the social organizations of the peripheral territory, with its specificities and its problems. In particular, the objective of the paper is to discuss and problematise the processes of participation involving and featuring vulnerable people within the reconfiguration of urban and digital spaces. Following Sutton and Kemp's approach, we consider the relationship between urban spaces and marginal communities as central to a one-to-one relationship, fostering processes of urban inclusion. Combining participatory processes in liminal marginalized communities with an institutional push toward holistic urban regeneration may develop opportunities for active citizenship, overcoming the neoliberal paradigm of the city.

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The War Against Ukraine, the Changing World Order and the Conflict Between Democracy and Autocracy

Wiesner

2024

The War Against Ukraine and the EU

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This chapter discusses the challenges that the war against Ukraine has brought for the EU, putting particular emphasis on the question as to what extent these are linked to a conflict between liberal democracy and autocracy. The EU and its Member States are having to reposition themselves in a changing world order that is no longer liberal, but at least multipolar. There are new political realities, not only in political and economic, but also in ideational terms. Adjusting to this new setting is difficult for manifold good reasons: China is trying to gain (geo)political and economic power and influence; several big states abstained from voting on condemnation of the Russian invasion in the UN General Assembly; and a presidential election is coming up in the USA in 2024. With regard to the EU itself, Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova want to become EU members, while the EU already faces rule-of-law issues with Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. In all this, the war is often discussed as a conflict between an autocratic regime on the one hand and the liberal democracies of Europe and the EU, to which Ukraine wants to belong, on the other. However, liberal democracy is also under threat in the EU itself and not only from outside the EU. Authoritarian tendencies and right-wing populist parties are on the rise in several EU states; there is visible democratic deconsolidation, i.e. citizens losing trust in representative democracy, and democratic backsliding. Consequently, for the EU to defend its values and liberal democracy is a challenge not only externally, but also internally. The war only amplifies these multiple tensions.

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Participatory Democratic Innovations in Europe

Cited by 20 publications

References 4 publications

Model Solutions and Pragmatism in Developing ICT for Public Consultations

Model Solutions and Pragmatism in Developing ICT for Public Consultations

Social and digital vulnerabilities: The role of participatory processes in the reconfiguration of urban and digital space

The War Against Ukraine, the Changing World Order and the Conflict Between Democracy and Autocracy

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