The political uses of combinations of democratic innovations

This paper examines how political actors use combinations of democratic innovations and the factors contributing to these uses. While democratic innovations aim to increase citizen involvement in policymaking, they can alter existing power dynamics in political systems, leading to both support and resistance from politicians. Existing research mainly focuses on how and why politicians say they will use democratic innovations rather than how and why politicians actually use them in practice. To address this gap in knowledge, I draw on democratic reform theory, particularly the distinction between act-contingent and outcome-contingent support, to propose a framework for analyzing political actors’ initiation of and response to democratic innovations. The value of the framework is explored through a comparative case study of two Dutch municipalities addressing waste policy through referendums followed by citizens’ assemblies, providing insights into how we can understand the complicated relationship between politicians and democratic innovations.