Despite some participatory democracy arrangements, the local government system in the Nordic countries are deeply rooted in a classic representative tradition. Various participatory forms are typically seen as either an in-between election supplement, or as a competing and threatening alternative to representative democracy and the role of elected leaders.
There are however exceptions from this main pattern that deserves attention among scholars. One of the democratic innovations that at the moment is high on the agenda in Norway and Denmark, is a type of adhoc committee where elected politicians and citizens jointly co-design (or co-create) policies. The most common model so far seem to be committees consisting of 5 elected councillors and 10 selected citizens recruited based in a competence profile defined in advance, and the expected outcome of the committees work is typically a proposal sent to the council. These committees often replace, more or less, the traditional standing committees that for a very long time have been a main arena for local policy development, and which up till now only have comprised elected leaders or local council members.
The mentioned adhoc committees arguably is a radical institutional innovation, introducing a new type of arena, and framing new roles for citizens and elected leaders. In the context of democratic theory, one can argue that these adhoc committees lend themselves to a rare and unique combination of representative, participatory and deliberative democracy.
Likely, the evaluation of this democratic innovation involving the mentioned adhoc committees, is highly dependent on which of these models of democracy one departs from. Based in different conceptions of democracy, the paper will critically discuss how adhoc committees are understood among the involved actors, the potential of adhoc committees in terms of effectivity and democratic legitimacy, as well as the challenges associated with the model, e.g. how members of these committees are selected, and what kind of policy problems these committees are fitted for. I will also discuss to what extent the mentioned committees pose a threat, e.g. to partisan politics and election processes.
The empirical material for the paper will consist of data from an ongoing qualitative Norwegian-Danish research project, where two of the cases have introduced adhoc committees (one in each country). The literature on co-creation will form the main theoretical context for the discussion, in addition to normative democratic theory.
