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LATINNO is the first comprehensive database documenting participatory innovations in Latin America. The project collects and analyzes data on (non-electoral) forms of citizen participation in 18 countries from 1990 to 2020. Cases are registered according to 43 variables that capture their context, institutional design and impact, and comprise innovations relying on deliberation, direct voting, e-participation and new forms of citizen representation.

The main purpose of the project is to investigate what makes democratic innovations effective in Latin America, and to which extent they can (or can't) enhance the different dimensions of the quality of democracy: responsiveness, accountability, the rule of law, political inclusion and social equality.

In the last years new forms of citizen participation have been growing steadily across Latin America. New institutional designs that allow citizens to play a larger role on public issues have been implemented by governments, civil society organizations, and international agencies alike. Among such innovations, one finds an increasing number of forms of citizen engagement that rely on new information and communication technologies (ICTs). The potential of ICTs to increase participation seems clear, as it reduces the costs of time usually associated with participation. Using their own smartphones, citizens can assist local governments to set their policy agenda, as well as report crimes or infrastructure problems in their cities.

Since the late 1990s, the left has become a major political actor in Latin America and the scholarly community seems to assume – implicitly rather than explicitly – that the right is virtually irrelevant in the region. However, this image is too simplistic and could lead to a false impression. On the one hand, right-of-center parties have a significant electoral presence in several Latin American societies and they govern countries like Chile, Colombia and Mexico. On the other hand, Latin America’s turn to the left was not necessarily caused by a structural realignment towards the left, but has occurred in great part due to contingent factors (e.g. citizens’ economic discontent with incumbents and traditional parties in the immediate aftermath of the Asian financial crisis).

The third-party funded project “Democracy as Concept and Cultural Performance” is dedicated to questions and problems connected to the so-called “delimitation crisis” of political development in the Federal Republic of Germany as well as other EU countries from the 1970s to today. By “delimitation crisis” what is meant is the lack of cultural willingness and ability to undertake and acknowledge essential limitations for every liberal regime.

Issues examined are: