Reflections on Electoral Democracy: Evaluations and Innovations

At a time when representative democracy faces challenges across the world from violence, authoritarianism, corruption and break-away movements, there is a pressing need for innovative approaches to institutional design. Such innovations have recently emerged in the context of both established and developing democracies. We are increasingly seeing the creative use of deliberative fora, new representative arrangements and citizen initiatives of all sorts to reinvigorate, refashion and in some cases save democracy. This section will showcase a selection of the most interesting recent work on challenges and possible solutions to democracy, with an emphasis on innovative institutional design and the use of creative interventions by international actors. The section welcomes panels and papers by comparative political scientists and IR scholars that explore current challenges to established and new democracies and creative solutions to these problems.