How to build inclusive institutions: collective governance in global history

Abstract

Abstract The 18th century regime of electoral republicanism within nation-states, later rebranded as ‘democracy’, appears to be threatened around the world. To rebuild democracy on sounder bases, theorists and practitioners alike emphasize the value of inclusive and participatory institutions. But how should these institutions be built? This paper presents the results of a deep dive into the forms that inclusion and participation have taken across history and the globe – we refer to them as ‘collective governance’. We describe the methodology used to explore the cases, what the data look like, and some preliminary findings. These findings put pressure on well-known social scientific assumptions about the possibilities and limits of collective governance and present a more fine-grained picture of the conditions that may sustain robust collective governance institutions at scale.