Reinventing Democracy: Innovation, Participation and Power

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Learn how to (re)design institutions to improve democratic governance
• Develop skills in different types of written communication including writing case studies for general audiences.
• Demonstrate an appreciation of different approaches and frameworks to understanding democratic practices and the relationship between citizens and the state (and other public authorities).
• Develop skills in communicating using information technology and contributing to online crowdsourcing of data
• Analyse data on participation and effective government.
• Distinguish between different democratic traditions and offer theoretically-informed analysis of developments in democratic practice

• Democratic citizenship: Who governs in Modern Democracies?
• Barriers to Deep Democracy: The Voice of the Sceptics
• The Limits of Elections
• Reform and Innovation in Democratic Governance
• Participatory Budgeting and the Mass Assemblies
• Randomly Selected Mini-publics
• Direct Legislation and Plebiscitary Democracy
• Civic Technology, E-democracy and Algorithmic Governance
• Nudging, Paternalism and Mass Behaviour Change
• Citizens, Populists, Elites and Experts: Who are we sick of?
• What do Democrats do? From Volunteering to Representing
• Size, Democracy and Multi-level Governance
• Improving Deliberation, Political Knowledge and Communication
• Analysing Participatory Practices and Redesigning Institutions

Teaching and learning methods

1 weekly facilitated learning sessions taking the form of lectures, discussion groups, simulations and/or practice-based tasks (2 hours).

5 1-hour fortnightly small-group sessions

1 weekly office hours.

Timely return of correspondence (2 working days).

Resources & Reading list

General Resources

Enthusiasm and Intellectual Curiosity. If you provide the above the university should be able to provide everything else you need.

Textbooks

Graham Smith (2009). Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External