Can Democratic Innovations Deepen Democracy in Diverse Societies?

Session Submission Type: Virtual Roundtable

Session Description

Can democratic innovations deepen democracy and promote pluralism in diverse societies? Around the globe, both consolidated and newer democracies are experiencing disturbing trends toward democratic backsliding. Scholars of democratic innovation recommend countering these trends through institutional innovations such as mini-publics, town hall meetings, deliberative polls, and citizen juries. These democratic innovations are designed to supplement electoral democracy by empowering citizen deliberation with one another and with policy-makers, and to enable direct citizen participation in policy-making.

In addition to democratic backsliding, another important trend in democracies around the globe is the growing awareness that strengthening democratic governance requires empowering the voices of those on the margins: the voices of people of color, Black and Indigenous peoples, women, LGBTQ folk, members of the working class, immigrants, and—especially—those experiencing intersecting axes of exclusion. Some scholars are celebrating positive trends in electoral politics, recognizing that record numbers of historically disempowered social group members are seeking political office, determining election outcomes, and shifting policy agendas to focus on equity and justice. By contrast, other scholars working on the politics of race, gender, and sexuality have questioned whether democratic governance can be adequately updated—or whether the principle of democracy can even be approximated—within the existing framework of capitalist liberal democracy. What do scholars in the field of democratic innovation have to say about empowering the inclusion of those on the margins? What is the relationship between the usually small-scale specialized institutional reforms of democratic innovation mechanisms and the more large-scale social and economic reform ideas derived from radical critiques of liberal democracy and capitalism? This panel brings together leading scholars of democracy, racial-and-ethnic politics, and gender and politics to discuss potential pathways forward.

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Cosponsors

• Division 3: Normative Theory

• Division 32: Race, Ethnicity, and Politics

• Related Groups / Democratic Innovations

Chair

• Jonathan Collins Brown University

Discussant

• Edana Beauvais Simon Fraser University

Presenters

• Jane Mansbridge Harvard Kennedy School

• Cathy J. Cohen University of Chicago

• Archon Fung Harvard University

• Lisa Garcia Bedolla University of California, Berkeley

• Omar Wasow Pomona College

• Azucena Moran Tobar Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies