Research for a ‘More-than-Human’ Democracy

July 29, 2026

The CASJ is co-funding a new research project with Participedia, led by Lucy J Parry and Hans Asenbaum at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy; Graham Smith at the University of Westminster; and Claudia Fernandez de Cordoba Farini at Westminster and Living Imaginaries. This project takes the first steps to map an emerging set of practices that reimagine democratic processes as those that engage meaningfully with the agency and subjectivities of nonhuman animals and nature. Many of these practices also reconfigure political boundaries and relations – reimagining democracy itself as a collective way of being that is inherently interdependent and entangled with the natural world.

At the heart of the project is a new case study collection on more-than-human democratic innovation on the Participedia platform. Participedia is the largest crowdsourced database of democratic innovations in the world, with currently over 3,000 entries. Thematic collections like this one provide an entry point for research, study and collective action for a broad range of audiences including scholars, activists, practitioners and students.

The range of projects and experiments documented in the project are incredibly diverse. Whilst it is almost impossible to fit many into neat existing categories, the researchers argue that they are forms of more-than-human democratic innovation: processes that aim to deepen and enhance the interests and influence of nonhuman entities in democratic decision-making. Whilst the usual definition of democratic innovation involves deeper and broader participation of (human) citizens, more-than-human democratic innovation is about how nonhuman animals and entities are conceptualised as democratic subjects and agents, and how democracy is reimagined when anthropocentrism is destabilised.

Two cases so far are particularly relevant to CASJ’s work: the RSPCA Citizens’ Assembly on the Future of Animal Welfare, and De-Mooo-Cracy! A Performative Experiment with a Cow-Human Citizen’s Assembly. Citizens’ Assemblies (CAs) typically convene a broadly representative group of citizens using random selection and stratification. Participants are then guided through a structured deliberative process that involves group building, learning from experts on the topic, small group deliberation together, and developing a collective output, such as policy recommendations. These two cases highlight the rich diversity of more-than-human democratic innovations – even though they both stem from the Citizens’ Assembly format.

The RSPCA CA focus was animal welfare and participants heard from expert speakers on several focus areas. Animals were not formally represented in this process – there was nobody explicitly claiming to act as a representative. There was however a perspective-taking exercise, where participants were given different roles to reflect from – including both humans and nonhuman animals. The aim of this activity was to consider the issues from different perspectives.  Although the CA did not feed formally into governmental policy processes, it is notable as the RSPCA’s first deliberative process, designed to feed into their advocacy strategy and policy discussions moving forward. It is the first national CA on animal welfare (that we are aware of), and one of an increasing number of deliberative processes organised by civil society organisations, as opposed to those commissioned by public authorities or academic institutions.

De-Mooo-Cracy was an experimental and performative Citizens’ Assembly. Activist-artist-academic Anne van Veen staged a mock assembly performed at an academic conference, as an exploration of if and how nonhuman animals could be represented within a CA. The assembly was rooted in Achterhoek, a region in the Netherlands with a lot of dairy farming, and the focus was on how cows and humans could live together justly in 2050. Participants were recruited purposively for their experience in theatre or performing, rather than a random sample. Only six participants were recruited due to the experimental nature and limited resources for the project. All had performance experience and were also interested in animal protection already. Out of these, four took on the roles of individual dairy cows, and two as humans. Participants spent time developing knowledge and understanding of dairy cows’ experiences and perspectives. Alongside learning from research on cow agency and bodily experiences, they visited a dairy farm, researched and wrote biographies for the individual cows they were representing, and developed a perspective-taking declaration on their commitment to the cows. The performance involved theatrical elements as well as the more usual CA focus on developing recommendations.

Further research is required to better understand the mechanics of if and how deliberative and participatory processes that centre the agency and subjectivities of other animals can have significant impacts on animal protection flourishing. This is the case for democratic innovations more broadly as well – our understanding of their impacts is still in its relative infancy. This research project provides a foundational mapping of a rapidly evolving and rich field of research and practice, and offers tangible, in-depth case studies of how democratic decision-making might be refracted through a more-than-human lens.

by Lucy J Parry and Claudia Fernandez de Cordoba Farini