STRONG – Implementing democratic innovations

STRONG is a multidisciplinary consortium formed by researchers who are committed, competent and capable to address the central goals of the DEMOC program of the Strategic Research Council. We are specialists in the study and implementation of democratic innovations, especially deliberative mini-publics, comprehensive security and public health, and public administration.

First, through deciphering both strengths and weaknesses in Finnish democracy, STRONG sets out to analyze the resilience of the political system, especially when it comes to decision-making un-der hard and exceptional times, such as armed conflicts, pandemics, or facing the consequences of climate change. Second, we systematically test, with various methods, how democratic innovations could be used to improve the inclusiveness of the system, making sure that all affected interests are heard. Together with relevant stakeholders at all levels of government, we aim at institutionalized measures of deliberative mini-publics with pre-specified connections to the current democratic system. Third, we will analyze whether these measures, putting emphasis on deliberative mini-publics, increase trust in political institutions.