Assessing (e-)Democratic Innovations: “Democratic Goods” and Downing Street E-Petitions

In response to a perceived crisis of democracy, governments have trialed a variety of democratic innovations. How to measure the impact of such innovations is both difficult and hotly disputed. This article tests Smith's (2009) broad-based democratic goods analytical framework on what is often perceived to be a highly successful democratic innovation: Downing Street e-petitions. It accepted 33,058 petitions receiving 12,384,616 signatures. Downing Street made 3,258 official replies. Given that it is arguably the most prominent e-democratic innovation in the world to date, the lack of empirical research is very surprising—and worrying—because the perceived success has led to the wider adoption of e-petitions. This article will fulfill three principal aims: to test the veracity of the democratic goods approach for case study research, with a view to streamlining it for future work; provide the first detailed, theoretically informed analysis of Downing Street e-petitions; and make recommendations for the application of such systems more broadly.