Jelle Turkenburg at NIG conference 2023
Many people are dissatisfied with the way our democracy works. Some think that we should strengthen the democratic processes by making better use of citizen participation. In the project Revitalized Democracy for Resilient Societies (REDRESS), we analyse how innovative combinations of deliberation (e.g. citizen assemblies) and voting (e.g. referendums) by ordinary citizens can be organised and what their effects are. We do this in collaboration with researchers from three other Dutch universities and a range of governmental and societal organisations. The work package in Twente is led by Martin Rosema. The project received funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) in the context of the National Science Agenda.
In Twente, we focus in particular on the effects that such hybrid democratic innovations have on citizens in real-life cases. Do citizens trust the local government more, if they are given the opportunity to decide themselves what a part of the budget is spent on? Does involving citizens in such new ways change their perception of how much politicians care about what the population wants? These are the kind of questions that Jelle Turkenburg focuses on in his Ph.D. project, which was supervised by Martin Rosema, Henk van der Kolk, Marcel Boogers and Barend van der Meulen. Jelle successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis on 29 May 2026. His dissertation is available for download in the university repository.
Additionally, Martin investigates how deliberation during referendum campaigns influences citizens’ vote choices. In collaboration with Charlotte Wagenaar (VU University Amsterdam) and Anna Kern (Ghent University), he also examines how experts can be incorporated into referendum processes, drawing on cross-country comparisons.
Together, these projects aim not only to advance our understanding of citizen participation and democratic decision-making, from referendums to other forms of participatory democracy, but also to provide insights and recommendations for policymakers and practitioners.
For more information about the REDRESS project at large, please visit the website of the consortium at www.redressproject.nl
Project Team
