Hybrid democratic innovation as assemblage: Probing and extending an emerging concept for democratic-innovations research

The assemblage concept has recently been applied to the field of democratic innovations. Although ‘democratic assemblage’ as a sensitising concept can sharpen awareness to the mixing and mingling of divergent components that is going on in practices of hybrid democratic innovation (HDI), the current usage of the concept also has its limitations. We argue that to move forward with meaningful theoretical understanding of democratic assemblage, additional steps are required. In this article, we forge connections between assemblage theory and governance scholarship, more notably institutional and cultural theory, to offer a more comprehensive framework for analysing democratic innovations. This expanded approach enhances the analytical and explanatory power of the democratic-assemblage concept. The case of the recurrent reshuffling of PB in Antwerp, Belgium, is used in this article as a test case and grindstone for conceptual argumentation.