Democracy beyond elections: Landscape

A landscape analysis developed by the Participatory Budgeting Project that explores top models of democracy beyond elections in four locations: Ireland, Scotland, Madrid, and New York City.

Democracy Beyond Elections is a collaborative campaign to structurally reform the way we govern and deepen participatory democracy and civic engagement, beyond and between elections.

To lay the groundwork for this campaign and better understand what is possible in the United States, the Participatory Budgeting Project partnered with researcher Alexa Kasdan to explore the expansion of structural democracy reforms beyond elections in four locations worldwide: Ireland, Scotland, Madrid and New York City.

The case studies are based on 17 interviews with local experts and a literature review. The four cases were selected to showcase bright spots in the expansion of democracy beyond elections worldwide.

While there are many other examples of successful participatory democracy initiatives, these were chosen because they provide a spread of jurisdiction level (municipal and national), are in developed countries with relatively high levels of social and economic inequality and showcase a variety of approaches to democracy beyond elections. All cases have an approximate population range between three and nine million people.

Source: Participatory Budgeting Project

Year of publication: 2019