Geographies of Democratic Innovations: emerging flows and patterns in Europe

Democratic innovations are deemed, by and large, to effectively respond to the malaise of representative democracy. Growing rates of electoral abstention and citizen disaffection with political institutions place participatory and deliberative practices at the forefront of current challenges of democracy at multiple levels. Whereas the scholarly debate has extensively delved into the range of factors underpinning and results stemming from democratic innovations, little is known on their "geographies". This blindspot prevents scholars from grasping the ways in which democratic innovations are framed within specific governance systems that are shaped by, and influence in turn, the spatial flows of participatory and deliberative institutions, processes, and mechanisms. Through the analysis of the geographies of democratic innovations, empirical evidence can be understood within interconnected governance framings and arrangements on different scales that eventually make sense of emerging patterns. In fact, through this analytical angle, new understanding can be generated on how democratic innovations cross-feed each other from the national scale downwards and vice versa, as well as scale off amidst cities, regions, and countries. Following these premises, the paper takes stock of the three most diffuse democratic innovations in Europe, as far as the authors were able to establish: participatory budgeting, mini-publics, and initiatives of collaborative and participatory governance. By relying on the review of more than 700 scientific publications, and an up-to-date collection of over 1300 cases from open access datasets, this paper aims to shed light on emerging flows and patterns spanning the 1970s to the present in Europe. Flows of democratic innovations focus on the scaling up, down, and off of specific models of participation and deliberation across European countries. Patterns will highlight whether and how those flows reveal significant associations between innovations and specific levels of governance. By considering the local, regional, national, and transnational scale, the paper will further examine the role of cyberspace in forming a new layer of knowledge. The main argument of the paper builds on the need to make sense of the geographies of democratic innovations by analysing their emerging flows and patterns. In doing so, the paper aims to offer original inputs to a more systemic and interdisciplinary approach to the study of democratic innovations.