This research component encompasses activities around three workshops to be organized in the first year of the project in the Republic of Macedonia, Italy, and Austria. These workshops will gather all partner representatives with the aim of providing a systematic review of the current practices and theories in the field of democratic innovations. The issues discussed will cover the following topics: democratic innovations in the EU, the bottom-up movements in the WB and the interrelations between the two. The goal is to expand the knowledge of the interaction and possible interplay between these phenomena and explore their mutual potential to democratize political processes in the Western Balkans.
Methodology Practices and Theories of Democratic Innovations:
- Systematic research on existing theoretical and empirical approaches to democratic innovations and non-institutionalized forms of citizens’ participation in the WB countries.
- Research on democratic innovation practices and
its methodology. - Selection of the designed models of 2 democratic innovations to be tested in practice on a local level in Serbia.