Project R-14689

Redesiging democracy: How deliberative minipublics are (and can be) succesfully integrated in representative democratic systems. (Research)

Deliberative minipublics (DMPs) have been widely implemented and studied as a solution to observed problems with our representative democratic institutions. Yet DMPs are also contested and debated in increasingly polarized "either (deliberative democracy) or (representative democracy)" terms. Aiming to bring nuance, this proposal contributes to the "systemic turn" in DMP scholarship, which called for research on how DMPs can complement and be institutionalized in broader representative democratic systems. Despite observations that DMPs rarely move beyond one-off experiments and remain largely disconnected from spaces of political power, collaborative governance theories that are wellsuited to examine how such connections can be institutionalized and designed have remained largely untapped. The applicants' combined expertise contributes a unique governance and participatory design focus to the political science dominated literature on DMPs. The aim is to describe, explain and prescribe how DMPs are (and can be) successfully designed and integrated in representative democratic systems. In the first two phases, the project will look back to take stock, by describing the integrative design characteristics of local DMPs, and by explaining DMPs' perceived success (using QCA methodology). In a third phase, these findings will be co-creatively applied and translated to an integrated governance model during a living lab with the city of Hasselt (using participatory design methods).

01 January 2024 - 31 December 2027