Democratic Innovations in Central and Eastern Europe

Democratic Innovations in Central and Eastern Europe expands research on democratic innovations by looking specifically at different forms of democratic innovations in Central and Eastern Europe. The book covers direct democracy (referendums in particular), deliberative democracy practices and e-participation– forms which are salient in practice because they match the political realities of our time. Expert contributors show how the recent actions of ordinary citizens in several Central and Eastern European countries have challenged the contemporary political order, and grassroots movements and diverse forms of mobilization have challenged the notion of weak civil societies in the East. The empirical evidence presentedattempts to deepen citizen involvement in political contexts sometimes quite different from the democratic political systems in the Western world. Using lessons from a still largely underexplored part of Europe, the book both complements and revises theoretical approaches, or complements empirical results in existing studies on democratic innovations. Democratic Innovations in Central and Eastern Europe will be of great interest to scholars working on democracy, political systems, political engagement, and Central and Eastern European politics. The chapters originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Politics.

1. Democratic innovations in Central and Eastern Europe: expanding the research agenda Sergiu Gherghina, Joakim Ekman and Olena Podolian 2. The role of partisan cues on voters’ mobilization in a referendum Miroslav Nemcok, Peter Spác & Petr Voda 3. And yet it matters: referendum campaigns and vote decision in Eastern Europe Sergiu Gherghina and Nanuli Silagadze 4. ‘Never just a local war’: explaining the failure of a mayor’s recall referendum Sergiu Mi?coiu 5. Direct democracy in an increasingly illiberal setting: the case of the Hungarian national referendum Zoltán Tibor Pállinger 6. Deliberative democracy and trust in political institutions at the local level: evidence from participatory budgeting experiment in Ukraine Dmytro Volodin 7. Attrition in long-term deliberative processes. The neighbourhood consultative councils in Timisoara Adrian Schiffbeck 8. Democratic innovations in Serbia: a misplaced trust in technology Ivana Damnjanovic

Sergiu Gherghina is a Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the Department of Politics at theUniversity of Glasgow, Scotland. His research interests lie in party politics, legislative and voting behavior, democratization, and the use of direct democracy. Joakim Ekman is a Professor of Political Science, with a special focus on the Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe, at the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) at Södertörn University, Sweden. His research interests comprise democratisation, public opinion and political participation. Olena Podolian is a Ph.D. candidate at Södertörn University in Stockholm, Sweden. She holds an M.A. in Political Science from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and an M.Sc. in Russian, Central and East European Studies from the University of Glasgow.