Designing democratic innovations as deliberative systems: The ambitious case of NHS citizen
Designing democratic innovations as deliberative systems: The ambitious case of NHS citizen
What does it mean to design democratic innovation from a deliberative systems perspective? The demand of the deliberative systems approach that we turn from the single forum towards the broader system has largely been embraced by those interested in designing institutions for citizen participation. Nevertheless, there has been no analysis of the practical implications for democratic innovation. Is it possible to design differentiated but interconnected participatory and deliberative settings? Does this better connect democratic innovations to mass politics? Does it promote greater legitimacy? This article analyses one such attempt to design a systems-oriented democratic innovation: the ambitious NHS Citizen initiative. Our analysis demonstrates, while NHS Citizen pioneered some cutting-edge participatory design, it ultimately failed to resolve (and in some cases exacerbated) well-known obstacles to institutionalisation as well as generating new challenges. To effectively realise democratic renewal and reform, systems-oriented democratic innovation must evolve strategies to meet these challenges.
democratic innovations; deliberative system; NHS; participation
Dean, Rikki
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Boswell, John
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Smith, Graham
1dd95321-f164-444e-8a9b-83e3c606ea4c
Dean, Rikki
1838dcba-3de8-4b0d-96fc-53f66e9d4f83
Boswell, John
34bad0df-3d4d-40ce-948f-65871e3d783c
Smith, Graham
1dd95321-f164-444e-8a9b-83e3c606ea4c
Dean, Rikki, Boswell, John and Smith, Graham
(2019)
Designing democratic innovations as deliberative systems: The ambitious case of NHS citizen.
Political Studies.
(doi:10.1177/0032321719866002).
Abstract
What does it mean to design democratic innovation from a deliberative systems perspective? The demand of the deliberative systems approach that we turn from the single forum towards the broader system has largely been embraced by those interested in designing institutions for citizen participation. Nevertheless, there has been no analysis of the practical implications for democratic innovation. Is it possible to design differentiated but interconnected participatory and deliberative settings? Does this better connect democratic innovations to mass politics? Does it promote greater legitimacy? This article analyses one such attempt to design a systems-oriented democratic innovation: the ambitious NHS Citizen initiative. Our analysis demonstrates, while NHS Citizen pioneered some cutting-edge participatory design, it ultimately failed to resolve (and in some cases exacerbated) well-known obstacles to institutionalisation as well as generating new challenges. To effectively realise democratic renewal and reform, systems-oriented democratic innovation must evolve strategies to meet these challenges.
Text
NHSC_PoliticalStudies_2ndRevision_Submission
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 1 July 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 31 July 2019
Keywords:
democratic innovations; deliberative system; NHS; participation
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 432542
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/432542
ISSN: 0032-3217
PURE UUID: a40d34ee-b942-4af2-959c-927fb17d5396
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Date deposited: 17 Jul 2019 16:31
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:17
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Contributors
Author:
Rikki Dean
Author:
Graham Smith
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