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OPINION:Innovations such as citizens' juries, deliberative opinion polling and even comic democracy have been used to connect citizens to politics, writes Clodagh Harris.

RESPONDING TO the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish electorate, Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin spoke of a disconnection between the EU institutions and its people. Others referred to a disconnection between the Irish people and the political elite. A turnout of 53 per cent revealed that these so-called disconnections were not matched by disengagement. Although lower than turnouts for general elections, the Lisbon level was higher than those for the two Nice referendums and the poll on the Single European Act. It was, however, lower than the levels recorded for the Amsterdam and Maastricht referendums but the Amsterdam poll coincided with the referendum on the Belfast Agreement.