Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL2120: Democratic Innovations, Deliberation and Public Policy

This module descriptor refers to the 2023/4 academic year.

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Text books/key books

  • Escobar, O. and Elstub, S.   Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance. Cheltenham, U.K. and Northampton, M.A., USA: Edward Elgar.
  • Geissel, B. and Newton, K. (eds), Evaluating Democratic Innovations. Curing the Democratic Malaise?, London and New York: Routledge.
  • Smith, G. (2009) Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sample of articles 

  • Andersen, V. N. and Hansen, K. M. (2007). How Deliberation Makes Better Citizens: The Danish Deliberative Poll on the Euro.  European Journal of Political Research, 46: 531–56.
  • Böker, M. (2017). Justification, Critique and Deliberative Legitimacy: The Limits of Mini-Publics.  Contemporary Political Theory, 16: 19–40.
  • Böker, M. and S. Elstub (2015), ‘The possibility of critical mini-publics: Realpolitik and normative cycles in democratic theory’, Representation.
  • Avritzer, L. 2012. ‘The different designs of public participation in Brazil’, Critical Policy Studies. 6:2 113-127
  • Dryzek, J. S., Bächtiger, A., & Milewicz, K. (2011). ‘Toward a deliberative global citizens’ assembly.’ Global Policy, 2(1), 33-42.
  • Dryzek, J.S., Bächtiger, A., Chambers, S., Cohen, J., Druckman, J.N., Felicetti, A. Warren, M.E. 2019 ‘The crisis of democracy and the science of deliberation’. Science, 363(6432),1144-46.
  • Fishkin, J. (2020). Cristina Lafont’s Challenge to Deliberative Minipublics.  Journal of Deliberative Democracy,  16 (2), 56–62. DOI:  http://doi.org/10.16997/jdd.394
  • Goodin, R.E. & Dryzek, J.S. 2006. ‘Deliberative Impacts: The Macro-Political Uptake of Mini-Publics’.  Politics & Society, 34: 2, 219-244. 
  • Grönlund, K., Herne, K., and Setälä, M. (2015). Does Enclave Deliberation Polarize Opinions?  Political Behavior , 37: 995–1020.
  • Hendriks, C. M. (2016). Coupling Citizens and Elites in Deliberative Systems: The Role of Institutional Design.  European Journal of Political Research, 55: 43–60.
  • Lafont, C. (2015). Deliberation, Participation and Democratic Legitimacy: Should Deliberative Minipublics Shape Public Policy?  Journal of Political Philosophy, 23: 40–63.
  • Lafont, C. 2017. Can Democracy be Deliberative & Participatory? The Democratic Case for Political Uses of Mini-Publics, Daedalus   , 146:3, 85-105. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/DAED_a_00449#fn9
  • Parthasarathy, Ramya; Rao, Vijayendra. 2017.  Deliberative Democracy in India. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7995. World Bank, Washington, DC. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/26245 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
  • Strandberg, K. and Grönlund, K. (2018) ‘Online deliberation’, In Andre Bächtiger, John S. Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge, and Mark Warren (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of deliberative Democracy.