by Eva Sørensen & Mark E. Warren

Contemporary liberal democracies suffer from a legitimacy crisis. The visible signs are rising levels of political polarisation and growing distrust in politicians and democratic political institutions. In a new article in Policy & Politics entitled Developing a Theory of Democratic Robustness, we argue that the crisis is at least in part due to a certain rigidity in the institutions of representative democracy that hampers their ability to change when society changes. This rigidity renders it difficult for them to continue to serve three core functions that categorise them as ‘democratic’: (1) empowered inclusion of those affected by collective decisions; (2) collective will formation and agenda setting that builds on inclusion; and (3) the capacity to make collective decisions that are broadly perceived as legitimate and binding. The current democratic crisis accentuates the question of how to build more robust democracies. 

Over the last few decades, many researchers have stressed the need for democratic reforms, but few have discussed the capacities of democratic political systems to carry out such reforms in response to social chances—capacities that generate political system robustness. By robust democracies we mean democracies that possess a capacity to adapt and innovate the way they operate when changing societal conditions call for it. To be robust, a democracy must be ready and able to rearticulate the meaning of its core functions so that they are relevant to emerging challenges, adjust its modus operandi to shifting levels of politicisation, creatively combine the available channels for political participation, experiment when existing ways of tackling political contestations become ineffective or illegitimate, and flexibly relocate decisions to a level that is conducive to responding to specific political demands.  

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