Innovation democracy refers to an array of practices and innovations in democratic governance and citizenship. These adjustments, reforms and changes are usually triggered by specific crises or demands. They are aimed at addressing many public issues and uphold various values, including racial justice, social cohesion and economic vitality. A lot of these reforms are also shaped by the modern technologies that allow people to organize themselves without needing to physically meet.
Despite their differences the innovations they are sharing have common elements, including a re-evaluation of democratic norms, the development of participatory imaginaries, and the mobilization of diverse populations to participate in activism and governance. These features could be a source of rejuvenation for a democracy in crisis. However, current scholarship has been unable to adequately grasp and analyze the evocative imaginaries of democracy and citizenship which inspire creative practices. Moreover, forcing movement models of democracy into classical definitions and models of democracy risks eliminating a priori precisely those aspects of innovation that could serve to revive democracies in crisis.
This article explores the role of the governance system, the political system, and broader societal contexts in determining the impact of democracy on innovation in developing countries. It tests the assumption that democratization is a fundamental condition for innovation in emerging countries by investigating how the degree of democracy relates to patent applications and trademark registrations in different regions of the world. It also explores whether the influence of democracy on innovation varies between countries that are not democratic and within different types of democracy using methods of econometric analysis such as OLS fixed effects, OLS GMM estimation of System.
