Description
In the face of increasing political disenchantment, many Western governments have experimented, with innovations which aim to enhance the working and quality of democracy as well as increasing citizens’ political awareness and understanding of political matters.
This text is the most comprehensive account of these various democratic innovations. Written by an outstanding team of international experts it examines the theories behind these democratic innovations, how they have worked in practice and evaluates their success or failure. It explains experiments with new forms of democratic engagement such as:
- Direct Democracy
- Deliberative Democracy
- Co-Governance
- E-Democracy
Drawing on a wide variety of theoretical perspectives and with a broad range of case studies, this is essential reading for all students of democratic theory and all those with an interest in how we might revitalise democracy and increase citizen involvement in the political process.
Table of Contents
1. Curing the Democratic Malaise with Democratic Innovations Ken Newton 2. Implementing Popular Prefernces: Is Direct Democracy the Answer? Ian Budge 3. Direct Democracy - the Swiss Experience Hanspeter Kriesi 4. Evaluating New vs Old Forms of Citizen Engagement and Participation David Beetham 5. Deliberative Polling: Reflections on an Ideal Made Practical James S Fishkin 6. Deliberative Democracy and Mini-Publics Graham Smith 7. Deliberation as an Ideal and Practice in Progressive Social Movements Dieter Rucht 8. Making Better Citizens? Ken Newton 9. Impacts of Democratic Innovations in Europe: Challenges of Evaluation Brigitte Geissel 10. When Democratic Innovations Let the People Decide: An Evaluation of Co-governance Experiments Julien Talpin 11. Democratic Innovations - Theoretical and Empirical Challenges of Evaluation Brigitte Geissel
