Introduction to the Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance: the field of democratic innovation

Abstract

Welcome to this Handbook! You have in your hands the work of 60 authors brought together to offer a comprehensive overview of the field of democratic innovation across the globe. This introductory chapter places the Handbook in context, reflects on what the field has to offer, and outlines the key themes explored in six sections featuring 38 chapters. We live in a time where the ideal of democracy is widely loved, but its practices are broadly criticised. Studies often highlight democratic deficits and the proliferation of a democratic malaise, while there is a growing debate about whether we are entering a period of global democratic recession (Diamond, 2015; Levitsky and Way, 2015). In the last decade there has been a reduction in the number of democratic systems, and established democracies are under increasing pressure due to social, political, environmental and economic factors (Wike and Fetterolf, 2018). Moreover, the gap between the ‘politically rich’ and the ‘politically poor’ is widening in societies across the world (Dalton, 2017). A sobering overview was provided by the 2016 Democracy Index, where the global average score fell, with 72 countries dropping in the ranking from 2015, and just 38 moving up (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2016: 3–6). The number of ‘full democracies’ dropped from 20 to 19, with the US now classed as ‘flawed’. Near half the world’s population (49.3%) live currently in a democracy of some kind, but only 4.5% of people live in a ‘full democracy’ – half as many than in 2015 (ibid). The 2018 Democracy Index, in turn, indicates that growing disillusionment with democratic institutions is accompanied by growing political participation as people are ‘turning anger into action’ (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2018: 4). Recent waves of the World Values Survey suggest increased frustration and authoritarian attitudes, with striking rises amongst the youngest populations of democratic systems around the world (Foa and Mounk, 2016). Although democratic principles still enjoy support, current practices and institutions evoke cynicism: people love democracy, but often despair at how it is practiced. In this context, the field of democratic innovation is growing, in part, to counter the democratic recession. This has interesting parallels with debates that emerged a century ago during arguably the first contemporary wave of democratic innovation. Although debates about participatory democracy, more broadly, can be traced back to Athenian democracy, the narratives about innovation that occupy this Handbook were shaped in the past century1 (Escobar, 2017b). For example, John Dewey was a strong critic of the ‘democratic elitism’ that underpins mainstream narratives of representative democracy (Bernstein, 2010: 74). Dewey saw elitism as central to the demise of democracy and the advance of elite-driven populism and totalitarian regimes. This quote from 1937 remains topical today: