Democratic Innovations Under Scrutiny

Is it still possible to think about innovations within the context of our battered democracies? ‘The Two Faces of Institutional Innovation: Promises and Limits of Democratic Participation in Latin America’ is a book that pursues this issue and reflects the maturity of this field of study on the topic of institutional participation and democratic innovations. Following an initial period of enthusiasm for these means of ‘deepening democracy’, the context of this work is one mistrust in traditional political institutions around [...]

Following an initial period of enthusiasm for these means of 'deepening democracy', the context of this work is one mistrust in traditional political institutions around the world and lack of belief in the democratic institutions themselves. 'Two Faces…' proposes a path of analysis to assess how democratic innovations, once viewed as intrinsically positive for improving democracy, can actually reinvigorate more democratic practices of political action and government or, conversely, may even decelerate the processes of democratization of political regimes.
In Latin America, democratic innovations emerged amid redemocratization. In Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, and in some ways also in Colombia, and a bit later in Argentina and other countries, they thrived as part of the rediscovery of politics by civil society and the resumption of basic elements of democracies, such as freedom, party organization and the right to vote.  Habermas (1996Habermas ( , 1989, as an alternative to Weber's classic view of the bureaucratic state, is one in which "the political system is not only an institution or a form of political organization; it is also a form of state and society interaction"(AVRITZER, 2017, p.

15).
However, Avritzer (2017) rejects Habermasian theory, as he sees a limitation in Habermas's perception that the public sphere is merely a means of civil society's influence with state-political agents, in search of determined changes. For Avritzer (2017), rather than influence, creation of spaces for public deliberation that could effectively transform the political system is necessary.
The following steps are supported by contributions from Cohen and Arato (1992) who suggest that the political system should make itself available to innovative civil society practices in the public space, and Fung and Wright (2003) who offer experiences of public deliberation within the context of actually existing political institutions. After criticizing authors who worked too abstractly and artificially on the idea of mini-publics, Avritzer (2017) maintains that innovations (2020) 14 (1) e0005 -3/8 in Latin America have been poorly analyzed and not incorporated into the theoretical debate. This is the hook of the book.
Much of the literature has acted in recent years -especially during the launching of democratic innovations in the 1990s and 2000s -as if they just hovering in the air, that is, as if they weren't really necessary, to analyze its success or failure, to consider the political injunctions around them and even how the political institutions received them (ROMÃO, 2010).
On the one hand, there was a certain obsession with institutional design, the mechanisms by which it would be possible to organize debate between rational individuals who could come to consensus solutions for their common interests.
This purely intra-deliberative pathway did not deign to deal with issues related to interaction with the public and the state.
On the other hand, those authors who sought greater empirical proximity to those that could be considered applications of deliberative theory attempting to obtain the right to a third consecutive presidential term, the Court denied the possibility of a referendum that could allow for such a possibility.
There is no doubt that the excesses of Operation Lava Jato express a limiting situation in the relations between the judiciary, the MP and the Executive and Legislative powers in Brazil. However, it seems to be a view too influenced by the heat of the moment that characterizes the MP and the STF itself as institutions that are absolutely harmful to democracy and concentration of power. politics to be open and to democratize. As Habermas predicted, the public sphere will be fundamental for the improvement of democracy. But it will always be in danger when the public sphere is asleep or imprisoned by vices and authoritarian sentiments.