Conclusion

Summary

The preceding chapters have evaluated the extent to which different innovations (and, latterly, combinations of innovations) realise the six goods of democratic institutions that we selected as the basis of our analytical framework in Chapter 1. These concluding remarks provide an occasion for reflection on the effectiveness of this approach to analysing citizen participation in political decision-making. The methodological aim has been to proffer a theoretically informed analytical framework that allows us to undertake meaningful comparative studies of democratic innovations. In so doing, the approach bridges the unfortunate ‘disciplinary divorce within the academic study of politics, between normative theory and empirical political analysis’ (Beetham 1999: 29). The analysis can be understood as a contribution to what might be termed an institutional theory of democracy, since the method generates an appreciation of the democratic and practical qualities of actually existing institutional designs.

Why is such an institutional theory important? First, it articulates feasibility constraints on democratic theory per se. Much political theory operates at a highly abstract level, engaged in debates about the proper principles and ideals that should ground our understanding of democracy. However, if little or no attention is given to the institutional expression of these principles, then theory is in a weak position to guide our political judgements and actions. As Ian Shapiro argues, ‘speculation about what ought to be is likely to be more useful when informed by relevant knowledge of what is feasible’ (Shapiro 2003: 2).