Book edited by Stephen Elstub and Oliver Escobar: “Democracies are currently undergoing a period of both challenge and renewal. Democratic innovations are proliferating in politics, governance, policy, and public administration. This Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance advances understanding of democratic innovations by critically reviewing their importance throughout the world. The overarching themes are a focus on citizens and their relationship to these innovations, and the resulting effects on political equality and policy impact.
The Handbook covers different types of democratic innovations; their potential to combat current problems with democracy; the various actors involved; their use in different areas of policy and governance; their application in different parts of the world; and the methods used to research them. Contributors therefore offer a definitive overview of existing research on democratic innovations, while also setting the agenda for future research and practice.
Featuring a critical combination of theoretical, empirical and methodological work on democratic innovations, this insightful Handbook balances depth, originality and accessibility to make it an ideal research companion for scholars and students of democratic governance alike. Public administrators and participation practitioners will also benefit from its guidance on citizen engagement processes….(More)”.