Parliaments and democratic innovations: Adapting the capacities of parliaments to changing democracies

In the last decades, democracies have experienced structural transformations. A growing trend towards disintermediation in politics, declining trust in representative institutions, personalisation and new forms of political participation have deeply changed representative democracies.

As pillars of representative democracy, parliaments have also been affected by these changes. In particular, emerging non electoral forms of representation including new citizen forums, representative claims by civil society and deliberative tools are driving renewed interest in democracy innovation and its impact on parliaments. These new developments are challenging the existing conceptual and normative resources of policy-makers and practitioners in parliaments.

The COVID-19 crisis has even accelerated changes in parliamentary democracies. The introduction of new systems allowing for virtual participation and for remote voting by members is a major shift for parliamentary institutions. In order to make sense of these changes, to spot new trends in parliamentary democracies and to help parliaments to prepare for future challenges, the European Parliament, the European Commission and INTER PARES | Parliaments in Partnerships - EU Global Project to Strengthen the Capacity of Parliaments  (implemented by International IDEA) are jointly promoting the online conference on "Parliaments and Democratic Innovations: Adapting the capacities of parliaments to changing democracies".