Rethinking Democracy

New Democratic Concepts for Austria and Europe

In recent years many realized that Europe´s future development will greatly depend on how decisions are made in our societies. It appears that the profound socio-ecological transformation we need cannot be achieved by current forms of liberal democracy. Resulting from this understanding a variety of concepts and initiatives for new forms of participatory and collaborative democracy were developed. Several will be presented in the course of this event: the Konsultative (consultative) suggest a fourth power in the state (in addition to the legislative, executive and judiciary powers) that would make consulting citizens compulsory. DiEM25 strives for the democratization of Europe. The concept of Liquid Autonomy proposes the use of new technologies for an extensive reorganization of the flows of information and communication in society, which could enable entirely new forms of decision-making - all the way to autonomous self-organization. IG Demokratie is an initiative dealing with instruments and methods of meaningful decision-making, which many people can support. Legislative Theater is an especially low-threshold method. The panelists present all these concepts and search for interconnections and potential synergies.