Developing a theory of robust democracy
本文提出自由民主政体在需要持续服务关键民主功能时，应具备适应和创新的能力，即政治稳健性，并探讨了当前三大挑战（政治文化、数字化、全球相互依赖）对民主改革的紧迫性。
While many democratic theorists recognise the necessity of reforming liberal democracies to keep pace with social change, they rarely consider what enables such reform. In this conceptual article, we suggest that liberal democracies are politically robust when they are able to continuously adapt and innovate how they operate when doing so is necessary to continue to serve key democratic functions. These functions include securing the empowered inclusion of those affected, collective agenda setting and will formation, and the making of joint decisions. Three current challenges highlight the urgency of adapting and innovating liberal democracies to become more politically robust: an increasingly assertive political culture, the digitalisation of political communication and increasing global interdependencies. A democratic theory of political robustness emphasises the need to strengthen the capacity of liberal democracies to adapt and innovate in response to changes, just as it helps to frame the necessary adaptations and innovations in times such as the present.