The institutional consequences of liquid democracy depend not only on the formal properties of delegation, but also on how delegation is embedded in processes of opinion formation and collective decision-making. Andreas Nitsche examines this relationship in Process-Embedded Liquid Democracy: Complementary Delegation and Adaptive Representation, published as an open-access preprint.
Using LiquidFeedback as a process-embedded implementation, the paper analyzes complementary delegation, automatic suspension, transitivity, persistent and layered delegation, and participant activity.
The paper develops the concept of adaptive representation. Standing delegations establish potential pathways of influence, but the representation that becomes effective varies across issues and process stages and depends on where participants intervene directly. In LiquidFeedback, direct participation automatically suspends a delegation for the respective decision without terminating the underlying delegation relationship.
The analysis situates this model within the historical development of liquid democracy from delegated voting toward organizational governance. It argues that claims about representation, influence, concentration, inclusion, scalability, or conflict accommodation cannot be derived from isolated delegation properties. They require consideration of both the delegation rules and the wider institutional process in which they operate.
The paper also identifies directions for further theoretical and empirical research, including the conditions under which persistent delegation becomes practically significant and how delegation interacts with different stages of a continuing decision process.
Preprint | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22746745
This work received funding from the European Union under the Horizon Europe project PERYCLES, Participatory Democracy that Scales (Grant Agreement No. 101177658). Views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
