Political support for hybrid democratic innovations: Local councilors’ perceptions of the merits and challenges of sequencing deliberative and aggregative participatory instruments

Democratic innovations can be at odds with the traditional role of elected representatives (Thompson, 2019). Political support for their use can be determined by different motivations and role perceptions, both of which relate to which elements of the democratic toolbox are applied. Elected representatives tend to make different judgements of the relative merits and pitfalls of participation based on voting vis-à-vis participation based on deliberation. What we know little about, however, is support for hybrid democratic innovations, defined as participation processes combining elements of deliberation and voting. By applying different types of innovations in a complementary fashion rather than in isolation, their relative strengths can be reinforced and their weaknesses can be balanced (Smith, 2009; Saward, 2003). Sequencing elements of deliberative and plebiscitary democracy could take the form of mini-publics purposefully being coupled to a referendum process (Tierney, 2013; McKay, 2019; Hendriks & Wagenaar, 2023). Fruitful empirical examples include the Irish Citizens’ Assembly followed up by a referendum vote (Farrell et al., 2019) and the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review complementing the referendum process (Gastil et al., 2014). Hybrid innovations may also entail less formal forms of voting, such as preference aggregation in participatory budgeting trajectories or digital platforms combining voting and discussion. Despite the empirical emergence of diverse forms, there are outstanding academic questions about design effects and support for hybrid democratic innovations (Hendriks & Wagenaar, 2023). This paper explores different combinations of aggregative and deliberative participatory instruments within the context of representative democracy. In focus groups held in multiple municipalities in The Netherlands, of varying size and rurality, local councilors conversed about citizen participation at the local government level. More specifically they exchanged views about the merits and downsides of combining different participatory instruments to include both aggregative and deliberative elements in the participation process. They articulated conditions for successful execution of such hybrid democratic innovations in terms of their internal design, the linking and timing of different modes of participation and contextual requisites for implementation. These focus groups enhance our understanding of the possibilities to innovate citizen participation by offering diverse modes of participation whilst paying attention to the context of representative democracy in which these are to be embedded. Farrell, D.M., Suiter, J. & Harris, C. (2019). Systematizing constitutional deliberation. Irish Political Studies, 34(1):113-123. Gastil, J., Richards, R.C. & Knobloch, K.R. (2014). Vicarious deliberation: how the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review influenced deliberation in mass elections. International Journal of Communication, 8:62-89 Hendriks, F. & Wagenaar, C.C.L. (2023). The Deliberative Referendum: An Idea Whose Time has Come? Administration & Society, OnlineFirst. McKay, S. (2019). Building a Better Referendum: Linking Mini-Publics and Mass Publics in Popular Votes. Journal of Public Deliberation, 15(1). Saward, M. (2003). Enacting Democracy. Political Studies 51:161–79. Smith, G. (2009). Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation. Thompson, N. (2019). The role of elected representatives in democratic innovations. In: Elstub & Escobar. Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance, 255-268. Tierney, S. (2013). Using electoral law to construct a deliberative referendum. Election Law Journal, 12(4): 508-523.