Abstract
This article develops a conception of democracy as an institutional discovery process for new rules, highlighting how political rules themselves can be innovated to address structural weaknesses such as short-termism and declining trust in democratic governance. It presents three institutional innovations – debt-sensitive majority rules, political contracts, and Catenarian Discipline – as experimental frameworks for aligning short-term political incentives with long-term societal welfare. While grounded in liberal-democratic principles, these proposals expand the design space for democratic institutions. Emphasising both theoretical foundations and practical implementation challenges, the article argues that institutional creativity can strengthen democracy and should be pursued through pilot projects and incremental reform.