Have We Been Judging Fish By Their Ability To Climb A Tree? A Study Into How Designers And Organizers Of (Hybrid) Democratic Innovations Perceive And Prioritize Democratic Values

Recently, actors keen on improving the functioning of democracy have started experimenting with hybrid democratic innovations, i.e. democratic innovations in which deliberation amongst a small group of citizens is combined with (online) voting amongst the wider population (Hendriks & Michels, 2024). Well-known examples of hybrid democratic innovations are the Irish Citizens’ Assemblies, the Oregon’s Citizens’ Initiative Review, and participation platforms such as Decidim. Although this field of research is still in its infancy, “the number of hybrid processes developing around the world is staggering” (Elstub & Escobar, 2019, p. 17). If hybrid democratic innovations wish to contribute to a better functioning democracy, they have to realize certain democratic values (Caluwaerts & Reuchamps, 2018). However, evaluating the extent to which (hybrid) democratic innovations realize various democratic values “is easier said than done” (Caluwaerts & Reuchamps, 2018, p. 67). Firstly, most work departed from a particular democratic theory, i.e. participatory democracy or deliberative democracy, focusing on a single democratic value (Warren, 2017). However, democratic innovations might be inspired by more than one theoretical perspective or democratic value – especially if we assume that they are introduced as a response to complex and messy, real-life political issues (Felicetti, 2021) and their final design and functioning depends on (street-level) implementation decisions (Caluwaerts & Reuchamps, 2018). Hence, we ought to evaluate democratic innovations from multiple theoretical perspectives at the same time, using an integrative values framework (Hendriks, 2022). The second reason why it has proven to be more challenging to evaluate the functioning of democratic innovations than expected is that we rarely know what their designers and organizers had in mind when designing and implementing them. Indeed, studies from the perspective of the actors who “carry the task and responsibility of shaping” the participatory process/institution remain scarce (Allegretti, 2021, p. 730). But how can one evaluate the functioning of something without knowing what it was designed to do? And is it fair or fruitful to evaluate a participatory process on the extent to which it realizes a democratic value it was not designed to realize (Papadopoulos & Warin, 2007)? To further the science and practice of evaluating democratic innovations, this paper sets out to answer the following research question: what values do designers and organizers aim to realize when organizing (hybrid) democratic innovations and how do they make design choices in light of those aims? In so doing, the paper intends to provide insight into the value perceptions of designers and organizers of democratic innovations. Additionally, building on the framework of key values for democratic governance innovation developed by Hendriks (2022), this paper investigates how they prioritize various, possibly conflicting democratic values. In order to answer the research question, a qualitative study of multiple real-life cases of hybrid democratic innovations at the local level in the Netherlands will be conducted. The data gathered will consist of observations of participatory events, official documents, and most importantly interviews with designers and organizers (participation professionals, civil servants, possibly politicians) behind hybrid democratic innovations.