Federalism, Local Government and Participation

In an era of strained traditional representation and polycrisis, the subnational sphere has emerged as a critical space for innovative practices that redefine the essence of democratic participation and collaborative governance. The panel examines how federal and decentralized systems navigate the current democratic malaise by leveraging the multilevel structure of governance to foster subnational innovation. It moves beyond the electoral paradigm to explore how the subnational sphere – regional and local – facilitate or constrain innovative forms of participation. By shifting the focus from purely territorial representation to institutional and democratic innovations, the panel addresses the nexus of participation in a reconfigured, multidimensional landscape of democratic legitimacy and effective policymaking – including questions of how federalism can guarantee pluralism, or of how subnational units can resist democratic backsliding and central authoritarianism.
The panel aims to reflect on the relationship between subnational democracy and participation, highlighting phenomena related to the type, extent, and quality of participation in its institutional and non-institutional forms. It aims to examine linkages between the subnational level with higher levels of government, capable of accounting for the multidimensional and multistakeholder nature of the concept of participation and for how it changes.
We welcome original papers on the relationship between political representation, (subnational) democratic innovations, and multilevel democracy; tensions between localized experimentation and collaborative governance; the disjointed realities of top-down frameworks and bottom-up demands; vertical and horizontal power dynamics affecting participation; connections between innovation, deliberation, and policy impact; the effectiveness of innovations in bridging representation and activism; and the role of public administration in different spheres of government in collaborative governance.