This thesis examines the abilities of constitutional mini-publics to make legitimate constitutions. Legitimacy in this thesis is defined as following the ideal of public reason. It is a quantitative study of the third weekend of the Irish Convention on the Constitution (a constitutional mini-public). They deliberated on and recommended amending the Constitution to allow same-sex marriage. Previous research into the legitimacy of constitutional mini-publics has been limited to studying their form, for example, participant selection or decision-making process. This thesis analyses the content of the deliberation. A series of theme analyses were performed to discover the reasons used. The reasons were categorised as public or nonpublic. The Convention on the Constitution justified all their decisions with public reasons. Showing constitutional mini-publics can make legitimate constitutions based on the ideal of public reason under the right circumstances.

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This thesis considers the possibilities of urban space for lived democratic practice. Taking up the debate on ‘the good way’ of involving citizens in urban planning, I employ theories of deliberative democracy and agonistic pluralism to examine participatory planning around the case of Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin, Germany. After its closure, the former airport Berlin Tempelhof turned into a public open space in 2010. Although there were plans of a partial development, an initiative-led bottom-up participation introduced a prohibition of permanent building development on Tempelhofer Feld in 2014. As one condition of the initiative, a combination of institutionalised and bottom-up participation has been established. The current conservative government of Berlin considers abolishing the prohibition of real-estate development. It thus disregards the importance of Tempelhofer Feld as a space for recreational and leisure activities, its importance for biodiversity and urban climate regulation and as a symbol of democratic achievements. Through a lens of deliberative democracy and agonistic pluralism, this thesis focuses on the participation process since the referendum in 2014, from the perspective of urban planners, activists and those in-between. The two guiding research questions are: Which aspects of deliberative democracy and agonistic pluralism can be found in statements by relevant actors during the participation process on Tempelhofer Feld since the referendum in 2014? How does the Senate’s plan to adjust the Tempelhofer Feld law affect the current participation in light of these theories? In line with the theoretical framework of deliberative democracy and agonistic pluralism, I developed four themes that can be divided into a deliberative or agonistic understanding of participatory planning: “role of the planning administration”, “understanding of conflict”, “goals in dealing with conflict”, and “understanding of participation”. To investigate the different actors’ perspectives, semi-structured interviews were conducted with key actors, in addition to a document analysis, and participant observation. The main findings hold that the current Senate department for urban planning does not allow for productive conflict by shifting the understanding of conflict in a way that denies its own biased role. Additionally, I consider the current bottom-up participation model as an agonistic alternative to participatory planning introduced by the Senate department. Due to its abundance of different participation approaches, Tempelhofer Feld can be considered a significant case for urban planning scholars interested in participatory planning, also beyond Germany and Berlin.

The phenomenon of news avoidance receives increasing scholarly attention as small but growing parts of society decrease or terminate their news intake. This development is particularly visible among younger generations, correlating with an increasing wish to disconnect digitally. The severity of news avoidance for society depends on the chosen democratic model. Following Habermas’ understanding of deliberative democracy theory, citizens are expected to be informed and willing to connect to the public. However, there are considerations for a change in citizenship ideals that reflect the implications of the digitalized world in which news consumption is situated. Consequently, there is a shift away from the normative expectation of always being informed, and even alternative ways of public connection have emerged. To explore the tension between news avoidance, the normative expectations of public connection, and the call for a more realistic view of today’s citizenship, this study explores news avoidance among young Swedish citizens. In ten in-depth interviews with young news avoiders, motivations for their low levels of news consumption were explored, leading to three categories: mental health, relevancy, and structural factors. Repeatedly mentioned were the personal considerations that news consumption decreased mental well-being and that free time was preferably used for personal interests. Additionally, the wish to disconnect from digital devices either directly or indirectly influenced news consumption. Moreover, understandings of citizenship were examined, showing various views ranging from cultural belonging to obligations. Regarding civic duties, the findings were ambivalent, showing both an understanding and a questioning of news consumption as a duty for citizens. Alternative ways of public connection, such as TV shows or social media consumption, seemed insufficient. Concluding, from the standpoint of deliberative democracy, the findings on news avoidance and participants’ understanding of citizenship pose a challenge for democratic societies that hampers public connection.

This dissertation presents the case for a normative vision of the relationship between technical experts and other non-expert members of a democratic citizenry. This vision is grounded in two key insights that have emerged from the field of science and technology studies. First, is the "third wave" science studies movement that identifies problems of expertise as the "pressing intellectual problem of the age." Characterized by the problems of legitimacy and extension, Collins and Evans build the case for the extension of the category of expertise to include those who have the relevant experience but lack relevant accreditation. Alongside this extension of the category of expertise is the extension of those who participate in the framing of techno-scientific issues. This dissertation builds a case for the inclusion of all democratic citizens in the problem framing process. What we are left with from the current "third wave" literature is a multi-tiered prescription for the role of non-experts in public decision-making about science and technology. On the ground floor, when the issue is being framed there is a need to include non-expert stakeholders (in theory, any concerned democratic citizen). Once a framing of the problem has been constructed, there is a need to recognize a larger category of people who count as "expert." Together, these constitute the two most powerful prescriptive elements of expertise developed in the recent science studies literature. The dissertation then explores claims that it is specifically "deliberative" theories of democracy that are best suited to make sense out of this democratization of expertise. After presenting a typology of deliberative theories of democracy that clears up a serious problem of equivocation found in appeals to deliberative democracy in current STS literature, this dissertation argues that only a specific set of deliberative theories of democracy, "discursive" deliberative theories of democracy, are capable of fulfilling the role theories of deliberative democracy are assigned in current STS literature. The dissertation then goes on to suggest how these new insights into the democratization of expertise might affect future instantiations of technology assessment mechanisms (such as the office of Technology Assessment) in the U.S. / Ph. D.

This thesis examines democratic innovations in Hungary, a country governed by Fidesz, an illiberal and populist party since 2010. Democratic innovations aim to engage citizens in the political decision-making process. The thesis analyses and compares two democratic innovations: the National Consultation, first organised by Fidesz in 2005, and the Citizens’ Assembly, first organised by the liberal opposition in Budapest in 2020. The aim of this thesis is to examine how the quality of democratic innovations is influenced by their organizers and the increasingly authoritarian political context of Hungary. Previous research has analysed both innovations in depth but has not systematically compared the two processes.  This thesis primarily uses official reports on both innovations, supplemented by secondary data from semi-structured elite interviews conducted with Hungarian politicians in 2020. The study's results indicate that the quality of the democratic innovations analysed is influenced by the ideology and broader political goals of the organisers, institutionalisation, and the dynamics of the illiberal state apparatus. It is noteworthy that the National Consultation lost its democratic and deliberative character after Fidesz came to power in 2010. Although the quality of the Citizens' Assembly organized by the opposition parties was affected to a lower extent by the seemingly unfavourable political context, the National Consultation and the politics of Fidesz have also negatively affected other practices of the opposition.

This study’s main contribution is a theoretical model for analysing parties’ use of deepfakes of their candidates in elections. Research stresses deepfakes’ capacity for disinformation as a challenge for democracies. In the Korean 2022 election, the two main parties used deepfakes of their candidates to communicate with voters. Given deepfakes’ well-studied negative implications, this seems perplexing. Amid this context, this study addresses the question: How can parties ethically use deepfakes of their candidates in elections? Merging AI ethics and deliberative democracy theory, three prerequisites are identified - disclosure of information, civil language, and giving justification - required for adherence to AI ethics and deliberative norms. This model was applied in a content analysis of the deepfake use in the Korean 2022 election. Results indicate strong adherence to the prerequisite of civil language, and partial adherence to disclosure of information and giving justification, and their corresponding AI ethical principles and deliberative norms. The findings suggest AI ethics and deliberative democracy theory are useful for studying the implications of parties' deepfake use. Starting from the premise of deepfakes as morally neutral, this study addresses a gap in the emerging field of deepfake research and highlights areas needing inquiry. If deepfakes become a legitimate communication tool for parties, it raises questions of the implications of such normalisation.

The Jasmin Revolution in Tunisia began at the end of 2010. Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest against the corrupt police officials that had forced him to pay bribes in order to run his business. His protest became the symbol for the revolution that followed. A combination of political instabilities along with an economic downturn that lead to unemployment created dissatisfaction among the people in Tunisia. The Protest grew into a revolution that demanded action against the widespread unemployment, lack of democracy and human rights. A democratization process started after the revolution because of the protests. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse how Tunisia developed a democratic system of governance, if the notion of human rights has changed since the democratization process started and to analyse the relationship between human rights and democracy within the case of Tunisia. Three democratization theories, are applied to this case on Tunisia in order to answer these questions. The theorists are Robert A. Dahl with a theory of constitutionalism and institutionalism, Chantal Mouffe with a theory of agonistic pluralism and Seyla Benhabib with a theory of deliberative democracy.  The three theorists have different opinions regarding democracy and democratization processes but they all agree that the modern notion of democracy is of liberal character and that inclusion and that equality is important for a democracy. This thesis shows that the democratization of Tunisia’s governance could arise because the process had a relatively liberal agenda, which is perceived through the theories as the modern concept of democracy. The three theories require inclusion and equality for a transition to be democratic. Tunisia has included the citizens in the work of establishing a better relationship between the state and citizens but also when drafting the new constitution after the revolution. The actions taken by Tunisia are compatible with the theories, and maybe an explanation to the democratization process. The relationship between democracy and human rights is important when discussing the democratization of Tunisia. The revolution demanded democracy and human rights, something that the state could not deny. In order to honour the revolution and its demands the government in Tunisia tried to incorporate human rights into the democratic work, linking the relationship between democracy and human rights. Therefore, it can be viewed as a liberal democratization process. This thesis proves that Tunisia is not a democracy, but the process after the revolution is still remarkable and one day I can only hope that the process will be complete.