Democratic Institutions for Egalitarian Deliberative Responsiveness

The paper starts from the assumption that institutional design in contemporary representative democracy should promote a political system’s capacity to ensure egalitarian deliberative responsiveness. Democracy’s promises of equality, autonomy and rationality can in the eyes of citizens only be fulfilled where institutions ensure that citizens can view each other as political equals, where decision-making is effective and responsive to their interests, and where decisions are justified in inclusive deliberative processes. The paper will discuss three democratic innovations that could potentially transform democratic legacy institutions to better enable them to meet the criterion of egalitarian deliberative responsiveness. First, we argue that single transferable vote (STV) electoral systems contain incentives that could improve deliberation between constituents and their representatives while avoiding polarization, thus improving both responsiveness and the justification of decisions. Secondly, we discuss whether empowered lottocratic bodies with agenda-setting powers could improve political equality and responsiveness. Thirdly, we discuss Ganghof’s proposal for semi-parliamentary government (Ganghof 2021) in which the legislature is divided into a policy chamber that discusses and passes new legislation and a second chamber that elects and controls the government. We argue that a combination of lottocratic agenda-setting in a policy chamber and a democratically elected “lower house” could improve both equal responsiveness and deliberation, thus ensuring more effective decision-making. Finally, we reflect on how new technologies affect the feasibility and potential of these innovations.