The false pretense of the democratization of representative government

Since the early 2010s, members of Belgium’s various legislative assemblies have repeatedly voiced concerns about growing public distrust towards representative institutions. In response, several parliaments have initiated institutional reforms aimed at integrating mechanisms commonly associated with democratic innovation into the representative framework. Among the instruments considered, popular consultations and sortition-based deliberative bodies have emerged as prominent options to involve citizens more directly and regularly in public decision-making processes.
This paper examines the democratic dynamics underlying the parliamentary institutionalization of popular vote processes. Do legislators conceptualize popular consultations and referendum as genuine tools for democratizing representative government? To what extent – if at all – is decision-making authority effectively transferred from elected representatives to citizens? More broadly, which democratic imaginaries are mobilized and defended by parliamentarians during legislative debates on these reforms?
To address these questions, the study conducts a qualitative analysis of parliamentary proceedings related to referendum and popular consultations in Belgian assemblies since the early 2010s. This paper highlights four steps in these processes that could be pave the way for democratization of representative government: the initiation phase, the design phase, the participation moment and the post-referendum impact.
Through a cross-level and diachronic comparison of these parliamentary debates, the paper
explores how representative institutions reflexively engage with their own transformation. By
analyzing the institutional designs advanced in these discussions, it assesses the extent to which democratic innovations are framed as complementary, corrective, or transformative vis-à-vis representative government, thereby shedding light on the parliament-led reconfiguration of democratic legitimacy in contemporary Belgium.