College of Social Sciences and International Studies
Democratic Innovations, Deliberation and Public Policy
Module POL2120 for 2021/2
Module POL2120 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
POL2120: Democratic Innovations, Deliberation and Public Policy
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover all or some of the following topics:
- Theoretical Foundations and Roots of Deliberative Democracy and Democratic innovations
- Varieties of democratic innovation
- Deliberation at different levels, local, national, global
- Case Studies from around the world (eg India, Brazil, Ireland, UK, Canada)
- Coupling Deliberation with Representative and Direct Democracy
- What are the aims of deliberation? How to we judge deliberative ‘quality’?
- Inclusivity issues: who speaks during deliberations? Who takes part?
- The balance between consensus and disagreement
- Online Deliberation – synchronous and asynchronous, chat rooms and live sessions
- Critical perspectives: exploring the legitimacy of democratic innovations
- The impact of democratic innovations: policy impact, impact on participants
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 | 0 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Lectures/seminars | 22 | 11 x 2 hours. A combination of lecture and seminar discussion; depending on public health regulations these will be delivered online or offline. |
| Weekly seminar readings & seminar preparation | 53 | This includes reading and note taking, preparing short answers to seminar questions, viewing online deliberations and listening to podcasts, reading presentation slides in advance |
| Self-directed learning for essay (guide independent study) | 35 | Reading, research, database searching, writing, re-drafting and editing |
| Self-directed learning for case study (guide independent study) | 35 | Including independently researching the particular case from web sources and readings, writing up and editing case study |
| Participation in online forum discussions/ deliberations | 5 | ELE forum or similar discussion topics generated by students for class to debate online (asynchronous discussion forum) |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
Other Learning Resources
- Participedia: https://participedia.net/
- Citizen Lab: https://www.citizenlab.co/
- Involve: https://www.involve.org.uk/resources/knowledge-base/what/public-engagement-public-policy-making
- Relevant podcasts and short videos of democratic innovations in practice
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.
- Bo?ker, 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.
