Description
Book SynopsisThis volume focuses on the issue of change in democratic politics in terms of experimental or actual innovations introduced either within political parties or outside the party system, involving citizen participation and mobilization.
Including a wide and diverse range of alternatives in the organization of groups, campaigning, conducting initiatives and enhancing practices, they not only question the relevance of traditional institutions in representing citizens' values and interests, but also share a common goal which is precisely and perhaps paradoxically to reshape and invigorate representative democracy
This book is of key interest to scholars and students of party politics, elections/electoral studies, social movement and democratic innovations and more broadly to comparative politics, political theory and political sociology.
Table of Contents1. Do Political Innovations Matter? Representative democracy at a crossroads Part I: Elite selection Stream 2. A New Political Elite in France: The end of professionalization? 3. Does Party Democracy Impact American Politics? The Rise of the Amateur Republican during the 2016 US Presidential Cycle 4. Primary Elections for Party Leadership in Italy: A Democratic innovation? 5. Experimenting with Open Non-Partisan Primaries: LaPrimaire.org (2016-2017) Part II: Governance Stream 6. An Undying Breed? The Electoral Mobilization of Supporters’ Networks by the Conservative and Labour Parties in the UK 7. Political Innovation and Democratic Participation within Podemos in Spain 8. A ‘Popular Democracy’ without People? Citizens’ Distant Support for ‘Participatory Governance’ in a French town 9. Privatizing or Renewing Politics? Para-partisan groups in the United States 10. Experimenting Local Civic Activism in Ukraine: The case study of Strong Communities Part III: Technological Stream 11. Tweeting Back: Innovative Political Contestation in Viral Posts on Twitter during the 2017 French Presidential Elections 12. Can Big Data Reinvigorate Political Participation? The Case of the French presidential electoral campaign in 2017 13. The Digital Mobilization of the Discord Community Supporting Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise and Beppe Grillo’s Five Stars Movement 14. Conclusion: Lessons to draw from the comparison
