Check the literature on citizen science (involving ordinary citizens in scientific research, e.g. to collect meteorological data or evaluate astronomical observations, as well as science done by citizens themselves), knowledge coproduction and transdisciplinary science (in which scientists and stakeholders do research on an equal footing to produce practical solutions for complex problems, and the literature on social innovation and service innovation. You will find most of the relevant publications outside political science, for example in the science policy literature (e.g. Research Policy, Science and Public Policy).

Not all of it will be directly relevant but you might find some inspiration to develop your own definition.

Dear Edwin,

Thanks a lot for your help. Indeed, emerging literature on social innovation service innovation may bring some lights about democratic innovation definition. I would try much more in a first attempt to look for case studies of innovations that proved to be democratic afterwards even if it was not their clear intent. Micro-sociological analysis and evaluation may probablty help a lot. Thank you in any case.

Moncef

As to what is democratic: you can also take a complexity perspective and see what emerges bottom-up from the actions and initiatives of individual citizens. Democracy is not necessarily designed or imposed from above but may be embedded in how a society works.

An easy text to understand how this may work is James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of the Crowds (2004). In the scientific literature, a fundamental text that makes it very easy to understand how complexity works in social environments is Thomas Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior.

Thanks Edwin, you are great ! I have read Surowieki as well Thomas Schelling. Their rationale could and would be the model of my desire to build an advocacy  in favor of the concept of democratic innovation ( one could think it's simply the democratic dimension analysis of any technological or organisational innovation, but for me it's more than a simple evaluation tool or analysis). The Complexity Perspective could be reinforced indeed by Etnographic and Anthropological approaches of local innovations that have changed the power distribution profile between the stakeholders of a particular group.... So Probably I should reformulate my Question into This one : Does Anybody Know about a field or a case study of an innovation that changed the distribution of power between the members of a group or a community ?

What would you think of this new formulation ?

Thanks for the help

Okay, that question is a lot better. Just to give you one possible case study: social media (essentially a technological and a social innovation) has tremendous impact on politics, allowing individual citizens to influence political discourse. This influence sometimes derives from the reputation and knowledge level of individual participants. But increasingly it is the power of numbers and the speed of communication through media such as Twitter that drives political debates. In the Netherlands, Members of Parliament often trigger debates based on small events that are trending on Twitter. In short, social media have brought ordinary citizens much closer to politics. You could call that democratic.

Thanks again for this contribution. There is no doubt that new technologies like social medias have brought a lot of change in many political settings, scenes and events ( the arab spring is one example of that). But should an innovation be translated in the political realm strictly speaking to consider it as a democratic innovation ( in the sense of our tentaive definition exposed higher) ? We should be aware that democratization is not only "a political process" only that can be read in the poltical scene. Micro credit or local currencies have proved to give more capabilities to many actors that were powerless. The mobile revolution in Africa or in India, opened so many economic opportunities and enpowerings for hundreds of millions of poeple. Again we should not restrain our analysis of democratic innovations on political manifestations of democratisation, but check what power dynamics and distribution change of it take place in social arenas broadly speaking. Does that sound reasonable for you ?