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Democracy does not have to be practiced in only one way.
Around the world, communities, researchers, reformers, and governments are experimenting with ways to involve ordinary citizens more directly in public decisions. These approaches can supplement representative government, reshape parts of it, or simply offer different ways for people to deliberate, make recommendations, allocate resources, and participate in civic life.
These approaches are often discussed under the broader term democratic innovations—new or redesigned ways of giving people a more meaningful role in public decision-making.
Different democratic innovations answer some basic questions in different ways:
Who participates? How are they chosen? What do they learn? How do they hear different perspectives and deliberate with one another? What decisions or recommendations can they make? And what happens afterward?
Exploring those questions can help us understand not only unfamiliar democratic practices, but democracy itself: who has a voice, how public judgment is formed, and how citizens and institutions can share the work of governing.
| Term |
What it means here |
| Democratic innovations |
Best umbrella for citizens' assemblies, participatory budgeting, mini-publics and other new participatory institutions |
| Participatory democracy / participatory governance |
Broad emphasis on citizens participating more directly in decisions |
| Deliberative democracy |
Participation that emphasizes learning, weighing evidence, hearing perspectives and reasoning together |
| Democratic renewal |
Broader goal or movement: strengthening/revitalizing democratic institutions and civic life |
| Democratic reform |
Even broader; can include voting systems, redistricting, election rules, campaign finance, etc. |
| Sortition |
A selection method—choosing participants by lottery |
| Mini-public |
A small, broadly representative group convened to consider a public issue |
| Citizens' assembly |
One important form of representative deliberative mini-public |
A Growing Family of Democratic Innovations
There is no single alternative model of democracy waiting to replace representative government. Instead, democratic innovation includes a growing collection of practices that change who participates, how people participate, how public judgment is formed, or how decisions are made.
These approaches are not interchangeable, and many can be combined with existing elected institutions.
Participatory Decision-Making
Some approaches invite people to participate more directly in shaping public priorities and decisions.
Participatory budgeting is one example. Residents help decide how a designated portion of public money should be spent. Other participatory processes may invite citizens to propose ideas, help set priorities, contribute local knowledge, or work directly with public officials on plans and policies.
Participation may be open to everyone affected by an issue rather than limited to a selected group.
Representative Deliberation
Other approaches bring together a smaller group intended to reflect the larger community.
Citizens’ assemblies, citizens’ juries, and citizens’ panels are examples of representative deliberative processes. Participants are often selected through some form of civic lottery or sortition, then given time and resources to learn about an issue, hear different perspectives, deliberate with one another, and develop recommendations.
A simplified path might look like:
Select → Learn → Hear Perspectives → Deliberate → Recommend or Decide
Here, the goal is not simply to measure what people already think. It is to create conditions in which ordinary citizens can develop informed public judgment together.
Explore: Sortition USA
Sortition USA is a U.S.-based nonprofit that advocates for democratic lotteries—also called sortition—and for citizens’ assemblies made up of people selected to broadly represent their communities.
Its website includes introductions to citizens’ assemblies, examples from the United States and other countries, educational resources, and information about ways democratic lotteries can be used.
Explore Sortition USA →
Direct Democracy
Some democratic practices give citizens a more direct role in making or approving decisions.
Referendums and citizen initiatives are familiar examples. Rather than asking a smaller group to deliberate and make recommendations, these methods generally put a question before the wider electorate for a vote.
Direct democracy raises its own design questions: Who can put an issue on the ballot? How is the question written? What information do voters receive? What rights or constitutional limits remain outside majority decision-making?
Digital and Civic Participation
Technology has also created new ways for citizens to contribute ideas, deliberate, monitor government, collaborate on public problems, and participate in decision-making.
Digital participation can expand access and scale, but it also raises questions about inclusion, access to technology, privacy, misinformation, moderation, and whether online participation actually connects to public decisions.
Related Reforms to Representative Democracy
Not every attempt to improve democracy involves creating a new form of citizen participation.
Other reforms focus on the institutions of representative democracy itself—how representatives are elected, how votes are translated into representation, how districts are structured, how campaigns operate, or how political power is distributed.
These reforms belong to the broader conversation about democratic renewal, even when they are different from the participatory and deliberative innovations explored on this page.
The important question is not simply, “Which system is best?”
A more useful starting point may be:
What problem are we trying to solve, who should participate in solving it, and what kind of democratic process fits that task?
