Political parties and democratic innovations: From challenges to consequences

Abstract

Despite the popular appeal of democratic innovations and of political parties’ need to reconnect with citizens, many parties are reluctant to embrace innovations - especially in the form of direct and deliberative democracy - either internally or in the wider political system. This is counter-intuitive behaviour on which the literature rarely reflects. This special issue addresses this gap and makes two main contributions to the existing research. Theoretically, it formulates broad questions to be picked up by further research and develops more focused analytical frameworks on how political parties use reforms. Empirically, it enriches the literature about the importance of ideology, explains why party elites and members engage with, avoid or are undecided about democratic innovations, and investigates the consequences of the relationship between parties and new democratic approaches for the political system, society, and decision-making.

Empirical puzzle and research gaps

Traditionally, political parties have been the main political institutions for interest representation, organization and aggregation, democracy promotion and decision-making in contemporary democracies (Bolleyer 2013; Dalton and Wattenberg 2000; Webb and White 2007). Over the last four decades, several lines of enquiry have emerged in the context of an increasing critique of representative democracy and its political institutions. The dissatisfaction and disaffection of citizens have been reflected in lower levels of trust, political participation and legitimacy (Dalton 2019; Norris 2011). Political parties have over time distanced themselves from voters. As a result there is a noticeable decline in public confidence in political parties and politicians, lower political participation (including voting) and higher electoral volatility (Dalton 2019; Emanuele et al. 2020). Moreover, especially in the 21^st century, mainstream political parties face the electoral challenge of fringe or populist parties that encapsulate people’s protest attitudes and anti-system beliefs (Heinisch et al. 2021; Mudde 2021). All these developments indicate that political parties have great need for new avenues to reconnect with the public.

Building on the idea that the solution for the ills of democracy is more democracy (Dewey 1927), earlier research advocates greater participatory and deliberative democracy on the side of citizens (Barber 1984; Pateman 1970; Smith 2009) and the use of experts as alternatives to politicians in the decision process (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002). Democratic innovations generally, and in particular the greater use of participatory and deliberative democracy, reveal a different mode of operation compared to representative democracy, with benefits for society and the political system (Fishkin 2009; Gherghina et al., 2025; Kriesi 2005). These offer several alternative models of decision-making in which citizens are engaged, marking a shift from a vote-centric to a talk-centric conception of decision-making in which the exchange of ideas, judgment and inclusion are prominent.

Democratic innovations of such a nature gained momentum in the 21^st century (Fung 2006; Geissel and Newton 2012; Sintomer et al. 2016; Smith 2009). Extensive research indicates that people appreciate this type of engagement in decision-making, and the demand for democratic innovations is high in many countries (Gherghina and Geissel 2020; Pilet et al., 2024). There is rather less research on how parties engage with democratic innovations, which is somewhat ironic given that, after all, it is the parties in government that introduced the innovations in the first place.

Despite the popular appeal of democratic innovations and of the parties’ need to reconnect with citizens, political parties have tended to be reluctant to embrace democratic innovations. There are only isolated instances in which parties use plebiscites or deliberation internally (Gherghina et al., 2020; Scarrow et al. 2022) and few occasions in which parties engage in external participatory practices (Gherghina 2024) with the potential to build upon and expand these experiences. In Europe, parties’ rhetorical support for democratic innovations remains relatively limited in spite of a visible increase in such innovations in the last decade or so (Gherghina et al., 2024; Gherghina and Mitru 2025a, 2025b). This is a counter-intuitive behaviour, and the existing literature rarely reflects on the challenge of democratic innovations and their consequences for political parties.

Aims of the special issue

This special issue aims at addressing the gaps in the literature relating to parties’ engagement with democratic innovations internally, and also in the wider political system. In this sense it bridges two distinct bodies of literature, on political parties and democratic innovations. It makes two main contributions to the existing research. First, at theoretical level, a number of the articles take a fresh look at parties’ engagement with democratic innovations. These either formulate broad theoretical questions to be picked up by further research (Paulissen 2026) or develop more focused analytical frameworks on how political parties use reforms internally (Kurban 2026) in the process of members’ preference formation (Marian and Gherghina 2026) or in relation to the broader sense of democracy in society (Klingelhöfer and Rahat 2026).

Second, the special issue makes an empirical contribution by providing evidence in relation to several democratic innovations such as deliberative mini-publics, participatory budgeting, and direct democracy. Two articles enrich the existing literature about the importance of ideology for the relationship between political parties and democratic innovations and outline issues related to continuity and institutionalization (Fernández-Martínez et al. 2026). Two articles speak directly to the broad literature about public preferences for democratic innovations, but narrow the scope of the analysis to those people engaged in party politics. It explains why party elites and members engage with, avoid or are undecided about democratic innovations for internal use (Kurban 2026; Marian and Gherghina 2026). Two other articles investigate the consequences of the relationship between parties and new democratic approaches for the political system, society, and decision-making (Klingelhöfer and Rahat 2026; Paulissen 2026).

Structure and content of the special issue

Party politics and democratic innovations scholars often spoke past each and both are guilty of the charge of under-estimation: democratic innovation scholars to varying degrees sideline or ignore the role of parties (in government) in introducing democratic innovations, while party scholars to varying degrees downplay the potential role that democratic innovations could play in helping to shore up democracy (Farrell, 2025).

The special issue starts with an analysis of the Swiss case by Toine Paulissen, which seeks to answer the question of what motivates parties to participate in referendum campaigns. Despite their ‘long heritage’, scholars tend to include referendums as an important instance of citizen-centred democratic innovations (Smith 2009: 111). Previous studies have tended to focus solely on the role of those parties which were responsible for initiating the referendums (Gherghina 2019; Morel 2001): Paulissen’s interest is in what motivates parties generally to get involved in and expend resources on referendum campaigns that they may have had no involvement in calling. He examines 33 federal referendums between 2020 and 2023, finding two main strategies driving referendum campaign participation, as measured by campaign advertisements. First, there is a ‘policy-seeking’ strategy, based on the idea that parties participate in the referendum to either ‘pursue or prevent policy change on issues important to them’. The second strategy is ‘image-building’, which is derived from the publicity and visibility that parties receive from being engaged in the referendum campaign.

In their article, José Luis Fernández-Martínez and his colleagues examine the fate of reforms around participatory budgeting (PB) in Spain, the country that perhaps more than any other in Europe has embraced this democratic innovation at municipal level. Despite its widespread diffusion, PB struggles to embed itself as a permanent feature of local government (Curato and Calamba 2026). The key research question posed in this article is what factors determine the decision to retain or discard PB following local elections. Based on a dataset of 295 municipalities over the period 2015-2023, their study finds that the decision to abandon PB does not simply come down to a change in the party control of the municipal council: rather, what matters is the ideological leaning of the parties in the driving seat; parties of the left (whether social democratic or radical left) are more likely to retain PB, whereas right-wing parties are more likely to abandon it. In other words, it is not the change of governing majority per se that is the determinant; it is the ideological makeup of that majority that matters.

The remaining articles examine the internal dynamics of democratic innovations within parties. H. Can Kurban’s article has in common with the work of Fernández-Martínez et al. a focus on the Spanish case and on the degree to which democratic innovations can become securely embedded. However, in this case the emphasis is on the dynamics within a political party. This article provides a case study of Barcelona en Comú (BComú), a prominent example of a movement party, a genre of party emerging from social movements, which are prominent exponents of democratic innovations (Della Porta, 2020). BComú is one of the most electorally successful movement parties in Europe: it governed the city of Barcelona for two consecutive terms between 2015 and 2023. In a context of sustained electoral success and a long period in office, the ‘iron law of oligarchy’ (Michels 1911) should dictate a consolidation of power in the top leadership. What makes this Spanish case so interesting is that the innovations endured. Kurban’s analysis is based on semi-structured interviews with the party’s mid-level staff. His key finding is that any tensions that emerged that may have impacted on the party’s democratic innovations were resolved through internal negotiations overtime, while simultaneously the party consolidated its position and the party organization inevitably became more institutionalized, thus confirming previous findings (Gherghina 2014; Panebianco 1988; Scarrow et al. 2017). Therefore, by embedding ‘reflexive mechanisms’, the party was able to ‘enable ongoing organizational learning and adaptation’, to ensure that its democratic innovations endured over time.

In the article written by Claudiu Marian and Sergiu Gherghina, the attention turns to the views of party members towards democratic innovations within their parties. As they note, to date most scholarly attention on how parties perceive democratic innovations internally has tended to focus on the attitudes of the political elite. While Kurban’s article is path-breaking in paying attention to the role of middle-level party elite, Marian and Gherghina give us the perspective of party members based on a series of semi-structured interviews of members in four Romanian parties. Their analysis finds much stronger support for deliberative reforms as opposed to aggregative (direct democracy) reforms, with the former seen as particularly suitable for organizational development and as part of electoral strategies; in the case of direct democracy, there is some support for the latter for internal communication and organizational reforms. They find that these trends are consistent across members of all four parties, regardless of their ideological profile.

Finally, Tristan Klingelhöfer and Gideon Rahat’s article takes us full circle, with a perspective on how the internal organizational style of a party impacts on the conceptions of democracy that they tend to favour, i.e. where the internal dynamic potentially affects the external dynamic. Using cross national data from the Political Party Database and V-Party projects they examine the trends for 194 parties across 38 countries. Their focus is on degrees of personalism within a party organization, based on an index of personalism that takes account of the degree to which power is centralized in the party leader or decentralized across multiple people in the party. They examine how this relates to the parties’ preferences for different forms of democracy based on Chapel Hill Expert surveys and V-Party data, finding that internal personalism has impacts that differ depending on whether it is centralized or decentralized: high degrees of centralized personalism correlate with preferences for direct democracy, illiberalism and majoritarianism, whereas high degrees of decentralized personalism go together with liberalism and consensus democracy. This study adds an important new dimension to the impact of parties on democracy, showing that it is not just the ideological position of the parties that matters: their organizational configuration can also be a factor.

A recent work identifies pluriversality, policy, political economy, and empowerment as gaps in democratic innovation that can deliver emancipatory change more effectively across political settings (Escobar and Bua 2026). Our special issue argues that political parties are crucial agents in driving democratic innovations and could enhance their effects in society. Although the relationship between most political parties and democratic innovations is often tenuous, the evidence provided here confirms that this is slowly developing. Internally, several parties see democratic innovations as potential avenues to improve their organization and communication with members. Externally, relative to the wider political system, increasing numbers of parties resort to democratic innovations to engage citizens, augment their visibility and enhance communication with voters, or improve the quality of decision-making. While the appetite for democratic innovations among parties varies, this special issue highlights examples of good practice that could create momentum in the near future.