Who Wants Democratic Innovations, and Why?

Commentators and academic experts alike have voiced increasing anxieties over the state and future of representative democracy in recent years. Their concern lends momentum to calls for democratic innovations, such as (more) direct democracy and deliberative citizen forums. We argue that the institutional design of decision making processes as well as each of these proposed reforms affect resulting decisions and have distributive consequences, rendering any innovation more attractive to some citizens than to others. At the same time, the different opportunities for participation that alternative processes and institutions offer (e.g. voting vs. deliberation) may have more appeal to some citizens than others, which poses a potential threat to the idea of democratic equality. However, research providing empirical findings concerning these questions is still very rare. On the basis of data from the German GESIS Panel, we seek to explore determinants of preferences over democratic innovations, focusing on the effects of individual characteristics and potential instrumental preferences. In light of our findings we conclude that while the call for democratic innovations should be taken seriously and the potentials of citizens participation should be used to revitalize democracy, any reform should be assessed in light of the old question “who benefits?”.