Explaining local politicians' perspectives towards the use of hybrid democracy

Democracy is an umbrella concept that encompasses several models, such as representative, direct and deliberative democracy. The political actors perceive and use these models differently. Earlier research showed that parties sometimes oppose certain forms of democracy while actively promoting others. Each of these models comes with its own benefits and drawbacks. Integrating elements of the different worlds can compensates for these drawbacks. Recently the concept of ‘Hybrid Democracy’ (Sørensen & Torfing, 2019) was introduced to refer to these combinations of elements of representative democracy with both direct and deliberative democratic components. This integration of democracy models occurs frequently in reality. In this paper, we therefore try to disentangle real-life motivations of party elites for according support to particular democratic practices. Local politicians are essential actors in shaping this assemblage of democracies. However, little is known on their incentives regarding this hybridity. We conduct in-depth interviews in four municipalities where elements of various democratic models coexist. These interviews with local councillors in Flemish municipalities inform us about their motives for opposing or supporting particular existing hybrid forms of democracy. This paper fits the Joint Sessions Workshop “Political Parties and Models of Democracy” since it concerns the question why politicians demand/oppose models of democracy.