Hot off the press:

The Sciences of the Democracies

Jean-Paul Gagnon, Benjamin Abrams et al., UCL Press

uclpress.co.uk/book/the-sci....

DOI: doi.org/10.14324/111...

INSPIRE panel at #IPSA2025 — thanks to our presenters and discussant ‪@kathaesa.bsky.social‬, lively exchange on Intersectionality & Participatory Deliberative Democracy with plenty of fresh angles. Thanks to everyone who contributed! We’ll keep you posted!

#InspireDemocracy #PDD #Inclusion

Our @szilvia-nagy.bsky.social, @felixhoffmann.bsky.social & Alan Marx will be at IPSA 2025 in Seoul! Szilvi & Felix present work on intersectionality & democratic innovations from @horizon-inspire.bsky.social. Alan shares research on mini-publics & policy entrepreneurs. Feel free to get in touch!

Overall: mini-publics and direct democratic instruments are a promising combination, but one that still needs more empirical evidence and related concept formation. Much remains to be done—and we’re happy to help shape this field of research.

German practice: mini-publics usually focus on policy formulation, but there are also cases showing new functions such as channelling citizens’ initiatives and petitions.

Early stage of research: empirical insights remain limited beyond well-known cases like Ireland, British Columbia, Ontario, and Oregon.

Conceptual: mini-publics can perform specific functions in policy processes alongside direct democratic instruments: agenda-setting/policy-formulation; giving voters balanced information; and providing orientation and guiding implementation.

#HotOffThePress:
New article by @felixhoffmann.bsky.social and Brigitte Geissel on combining mini-publics and direct democratic instruments (in German).
Key take aways in comments.
Book: dietz-verlag.de/isbn/9783801...

The INSPIRE team at Birmingham University is using Legislative Theatre to empower young people and influence policy change.
Register here for the upcoming webinar to get deep insights! bit.ly/3G4U9aY

#InspireDemocracy #PDD #Inclusion

Die Forschungsstelle Demokratische Innovationen hat den ersten Bürger*innenrat Aachen, der erste permanente #Bürgerrat in Deutschland, wissenschaftlich begleitet. Den Abschlussbericht zur Evaluation könnt ihr jetzt auf unserer Homepage herunterladen:
tinygu.de/BuergerInnen...

If all you want for Christmas is a new job, then I have just the thing.

Come work with me on the Integrating Citizen Deliberation for Impact project. Join a great dept at Southampton, and an international team researching the European wave of climate assemblies.

jobs.soton.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Hello Bluesky-Community! Thanks to @rikkidean.bsky.social for creating this useful starter pack of Democratic Innovations scholars.