Wow! eBook
Citizenship and Democratic Innovations in Europe (Critical European Studies)
Author(s): Ireneusz Paweł Karolewski (Editor), Carsten Herzberg (Editor)
- Publisher: Routledge
- Publication Date: October 16, 2025
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 270 pages
- ISBN-10: 1032866438
- ISBN-13: 9781032866437
Book Description
This book brings together scholarship and debates on citizenship and democratic innovation, and examines how democratic innovations might change, or even consolidate, the existing contours of citizenship.
Arguing that the nexus between research on citizenship and democratic innovations can be found in the praxis approach to citizenship, where citizenship can be framed as a realm of actions and practices, the book shifts the discussion from the institutional level into a more conceptual realm of analysis. Taking stock of the democratic innovations at the local level, the national level, and the EU-level, such as citizen assemblies, referendums, and participatory budgeting, the book further surveys and maps their contribution to the democratic quality of citizenship across various European countries.
This book is of key interest to scholars and students of democratic innovations, citizenship studies, democratization, governance, and more generally public policy, and European Politics and Studies.
Chapter 5 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Citizens´ juries, participatory budgeting and direct democracy: this book presents a detailed analysis of the most important democratic innovations in Western and Eastern Europe in the last decades.”
Yves Sintomer, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, UK
“When democratic life weakens, the knee-jerk reaction is to innovate. Innovation could lead to salvation and the question is for whom: could the citizens benefit – or would reinterpreting democracy lead to throwing the baby with the bath water, leading to unchecked rule? This innovative collection walks the tightrope of rigorous clarity between the two scenarios and is guided by the unquestionable ideal of keeping democratic legitimation of power alive.”
Dimitry V. Kochenov, Central European University Democracy Institute, Budapest and Vienna
About the Author
Ireneusz Paweł Karolewski is Professor for Political Theory and Democracy Research at Leipzig University, Germany.
Carsten Herzberg is an expert adviser at the NGO ‘mitMachen’ in Potsdam, Germany, where he leads in Brandenburg projects on civic education and democracy for young people.
