📑 WP1 Report (D1.1) – Mapping the Foundations of Representative Democracy | Exeter, United Kingdom | April 29, 2024 🇬🇧

The REDIRECT project releases its first major report under Work Package 1 (WP1), led by the University of Exeter. WP1 provides the analytical foundation for the project’s research agenda, mapping the central questions that guide its interpretative, normative, and empirical strands while building a framework for dialogue across them.

This report offers a synthetic account of modern representative democracy, outlining its historical development, core features, and the tensions and challenges shaping its current functioning.

🔑 Highlights of the Report:

  • Clarifies the formation and evolution of representative democracy within a broad historical genealogy

  • Adopts a “Neurathian bootstrap” approach, viewing institutions and knowledge as products of piecemeal reconstruction requiring ongoing adaptation

  • Frames representative democracy as a historically contingent construct, rooted in Europe’s experience but relevant across OECD contexts

  • Traces the successive transformations that have continuously redefined democracy’s meaning and practice

  • Lays the groundwork for future research on the ecology of representation and the phenomenon of representative disconnect

🌍 Rather than resolving democracy’s enduring dilemmas, WP1 makes a constructive contribution by clarifying its complexities and situating REDIRECT’s inquiry within a broader conversation on the future of democratic institutions.

📍 Location: University of Exeter, United Kingdom

📅 Date: April 29, 2024

🤝 Partner: University of Exeter (UNEXE)

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