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Studying Regions as Spaces for Democracy: A Political Sociological Approach

Why have some European regions institutionalized participatory democracy? To answer this question, this article adopts a sociological approach and method which go beyond current political science narratives about regional democracies. To study how choices over participatory democracy are mediated, we locate an ‘observatory site’—the Regional Government Site—and examine interactions and strategies of actors therein. When applied to the institutionalization of citizens’ juries in Rhônes-Alpes, our approach reveals how, through the resolution of contingencies, regional authorities become producers of participatory democracy. Organizational struggles combined with ideological struggles over visions of democracy transformed the region into a space for politics.