Democratic Innovations in Dutch Local Government: Experimentation in Search of Strategy

Abstract

Many attempts to innovate local democracy focus on enhancing dialogue and fostering collaboration between citizens, local politicians and local public servants. Their architects claim, as do many academics, that these innovations have positive effects on the quality of democratic governance. But what do they actually value when they do so? We distinguish three theoretical perspectives on the contribution of local democracy innovations: (1) a problem solving perspective: democratic innovation as a precondition for more effective public policy design and delivery; (2) a democratic quality perspective: democratic innovation as a contribution to embedding process values such as inclusion, participation and empowerment into local political processes; (3) an institutional capacity perspective: democratic innovation as a means to improve the capacity of the local government organization to connect with and process the needs, aspirations and concerns of local citizens of different stripes. We present evidence from case studies of four mid-sized municipalities in the Netherlands and show that the assessment of ‘democratic innovation’ varies among politicians, decision-makers and civil servants involved in local democracy innovations. Democratic innovations are neither designed nor assessed according to a single, coherent and widely shared innovation philosophy.