German political scientist discusses the various forms of democracy

The pros and cons of the debates on democracy and current aspects of approaches to different types of democracy will be discussed at the conference Democracy beyond Institutional Orders?, which will take place on April 20, at 9.00 am, at the IEA. The consequences that these approaches may have for the quality of democracy will also be discussed. The event will be held in English with a live webcast.

Organized by IEA's Research Group on Quality of Democracy and by the Martius Chair on German and European Studies, the conference will be hosted by Anja Mihr, founder and program director at the Center on Governance through Human Rights, Humboldt-Viadrina Governance Platform, in Berlin. Moderation will be in charge of José Álvaro Moisés, coordinator of the research group.

Among the forms of democracy that will be addressed there are multilevel democracy and multi-stakeholder democracy. The first is based on the idea that there are different structures of authorities involved in economic policies. The second is a model that allows the participation of all actors of society (representatives of governments, private sector and civil society) in a system.

In addition to them, liquid democracy, a mixed system of direct democracy and representative democracy, in which the representatives of the people are appointed to vote on each theme rather than being elected for a long term mandate, and the so-called "beyond institutionalism" democracy, which concerns democratic practices outside formal democratic institutions, will also be discussed.

There is also the issue of what would happen if the institutions - parliaments, governments, political parties and even courts and effective bureaucracies - were no longer key to stakeholders.

Anja Mihr

Mihr holds a PhD in Political Science from the Freie Universität Berlin. She has been a professor of public policy, transitional justice, international relations and human rights at the University of Erfurt's Willy Brandt Public Policy School and at the Utrecht University's Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM).

She also served as a visiting professor at Columbia University, Beijing University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Yerevan State University.

Her interdisciplinary research interests focus on the interconnection between international law and governance, democracy, justice and human rights.