Political innovation as ideal and strategy: the case of aleatoric democracy in the City of Utrecht

Abstract

Political innovations aim to strengthen democracy but few connect well to the institutionalized democratic context. This paper explores how political innovations can be successfully embedded in existing democratic systems. It builds upon both the literature on political innovation and on new democratic arrangements and studies a practice of aleatoric democracy – using the lottery instead of elections to select representatives – in the Dutch City of Utrecht. The case study shows how the idealist logic of improving democracy and the realist logic of realizing specific political goals intertwine to get the political innovation accepted by the institutionalized democratic system.