Enhancing Democracy throughout the Policy Process
by Sarah Brown and Elizabeth Koebele
This quarter’s highlights collection features four articles that examine the use of democratic principles and processes in contexts that are not traditionally democratic, which we hope will resonate with some of the topical debates that are currently playing out on the global stage.
In our first article, author Karin Fossheim asks how non-elected representatives can secure democratic representation. In this important contribution to the literature on representative democracy, Fossheim analyses representation in governance networks. She does this by comparing how non-elected representatives, their constituents and the decision-making audience understand the outcome of representation to benefit constituency, authorisation and accountability. Her research findings conclude that all three groups mostly share an understanding of democratic non-electoral representation, understood as ongoing interactions between representatives and constituents, multiple (if any) organisational and discursive sources of authorisation and deliberative aspects of accountability. All these elements are shown to support democratic representation despite the absence of elections.
Our second article, entitled The democratic qualities of regulatory agencies, takes up the concern that regulatory agencies are undemocratic because of their independence from political control. Author Libby Maman dispels this myth by contextualising the work of regulatory agencies as developing practices and organisational designs that reflect the sharing of power with external actors, which has the effect of enhancing their democratic qualities. By identifying and naming indicators of mandatory and voluntary democratic qualities based on a qualitative analysis of six regulatory agencies, Maman advocates a research agenda that illuminates the role of bureaucracies in promoting pluralistic or majoritarian democratic values.
Our third article, entitled The impact of direct democracy on policy change: insights from European citizens’ initiatives, by Jale Tosun, Daniel Béland and Yannis Papadopoulos, challenges traditional notions of citizens’ limited impact on policy change. The authors find that citizen participation through direct democratic avenues can have powerful direct and indirect effects on policy that contribute to broader transformational societal change.
Staying with the idea of public participation having democratising effects on policy change, our fourth and final article in this collection looks at The democratic transformation of public policy through community activism in Brazil. Here, authors Rosana de Freitas Boullosa and Janaína Lopes Pereira Peres explore how community-based governance and the collective design of experience-oriented policy and action can promote transformational change. Using a critical-interpretive perspective, they derive three key lessons for achieving change from the experience of Paraisópolis, a Brazilian favela made famous for its successful COVID-19 response plan despite historical state abandonment and other vulnerabilities. The three lessons – (i) proximity coordination, (ii) collective learning, and (iii) affectionate relationality – all underpin the principles of ‘community activism’ and ‘deliberative empowerment.’ Through this case study, the authors argue that transformational change crucially involves civil society engagement alongside inclusive deliberative forums. This reinforces the need to pursue a policy research agenda attentive to sociocentric experiences, ordinary actors and the emotions and values underlying public action.
Ending this quarter’s collection on that positive and optimistic note, we wish you all a happy end of the academic year break, wherever you are reading this.
Please look out for our reading list recommendations forthcoming on this blog in early August to help you prepare for your teaching at the start of the new academic year!
Sarah (Brown) and Elizabeth (Koebele)
The articles featured in this quarterly highlights collection are free to view and/or download from 1st August until 31st October 2023. Full details and access links are listed below.
- How can non-elected representatives secure democratic representation? (Fossheim) https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16371011677734
- The democratic qualities of regulatory agencies (Maman)https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16490875448288
- The impact of direct democracy on policy change: insights from European citizens’ initiatives (Tosun et al.) https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16476244758073
- The democratic transformation of public policy through community activism in Brazil (Boullosa and Lopes Pereira Peres) https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16498834538186
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