Participatory democracy
Encyclopedia
Participatory Democracy, also known as Deliberative Democracy, Direct Democracy and Real Democracy , is a process where political decisions are made directly by regular people. It stands in contrast to the far more prevalent Representative democracy
, where political decisions are made not by the people themselves but by elected representatives.
Participatory democracy strives to create opportunities for all members of a political group to make meaningful contributions to decision-making, and seeks to broaden the range of people who have access to such opportunities. Because so much information must be gathered for the overall decision-making process to succeed, technology may provide important forces leading to the type of empowerment
needed for participatory models, especially those technological tools that enable community narratives and correspond to the accretion of knowledge. Effectively increasing the scale of participation, and translating small but effective participation groups into small world networks, are areas currently being studied.
Some scholars argue for refocusing the term on community-based activity within the domain of civil society
, based on the belief that a strong non-governmental public sphere
is a precondition for the emergence of a strong liberal democracy
. These scholars tend to stress the value of separation between the realm of civil society and the formal political realm. In 2011, considerable grass roots interest in participatory democracy was generated by the Occupy movement
.
Representative democracy
is not generally considered participatory. Bioregional democracy is often but not necessarily participatory. Grassroots democracy
is an alternative term that has been used to imply almost any combination of the above.
New concepts such as open source governance
, collaborative governance
, open source politics, and open politics seek to radically increase participation through electronic collaboration tools such as wiki
s and 'wikigovernment'.
Participatory politics
(or parpolity) is a long-range political theory that also incorporates many of the above and strives to create a political system that will allow people to participate in politics, as much as possible in a face-to-face manner.
Panocracy or 'pantocracy' also has similarities with participatory democracy. However, it avoids the concept of demos or the people having a single view with the inevitable limitations that come from trying to agree what that view is. It also avoids the expectations that attach to anything called democracy.
Demarchy
is a hypothetical system where government is heavily decentralized into smaller independent groups. Each group is responsible for one or several functions in society. Officials are volunteers elected to committees controlling these groups by sortition
. The system seeks to avoid problems with centralized and electoral governance, while still providing a stable democratic system.
, the informal distributed power structure of the villages and minor towns began to be displaced with collectives of Oligarchs seizing power as the villages and towns coalesced into city states. This caused much hardship and discontent among the common people, with many having to sell their land due to debts, and even suffer from debt slavery. At around 600BC Solon
initiated some reforms to limit the power of Oligarchs and re-establish a partial form of participatory democracy with some decisions taken by a poplar assembly composed of all free male citizens. About a century later, Solon's reforms were further enhanced for even more direct involement of regular citizens by Cleisthenes
.
A brief period where a region was governed almost totally by participatory democracy occurred during the Spanish civil war
, from 1936-1938, in the parts of Spain controlled by anarchist republicans. In 1938 the anarchists were displaced after being turned on by their former republican allies in the Communist party as well as suffering attacks by the loyalist forces of General Franco
. The writer George Orwell
, who experienced participatory democracy as he was in Spain with the anarchists before their defeat, discusses it in his book Homage to Catalonia
, and says participatory democracy was a "strange and valuable" experience where one could "breath the air of equality" and where normal human motives like snobbishness, greed and fear of authority had ceased to exist.
The mystic and philosopher Simone Weil
, who had helped the Spanish anarchists as a combat soldier, would later promote participatory democracy in her political manifesto The Need for Roots
.
In the 1960s the promotion and use of participatory democracy was a major theme for elements of the American Left.
In the 1980s, the profile of participatory democracy within academia was raised by James Friskin, the professor who coined the phrase "deliberative democracy". Experiments in participatory democracy began in cities such as Brazil's Porto Alegre
. A World Bank
study found that participatory democracy in theese cities seemed to result in considerable improvement in the quality of life for residents.
In the early 21st century, low profile experiments in participatory democracy began to spread throughout South and North Americas and also to Great Britain. A partial example in the USA occurred with drawing up the plans to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
, with thousands of ordinary citizens involved with drafting and approving the plan. In 2011, participatory democracy became a notable feature of the occupy movement, with occupy camps around the world taking decisions based on the outcome of working groups where every protestor gets to have their say, and by general assemblies where the decisions taken by working groups are effectively aggregated together. Those involved with the occupy movement have been described as very much attached to their forms of participatory democracy, even to the extent of "fetishizing it." .
An issue with participatory democracy is that it is in tension with the much more common representative form of democracy - ultimately decision making power must rest at only one level, agency must be either with the people or their representatives. An issue that has been often commented on since the advent of the occupy movement is that participatory democracy can be a very slow means of making decisions, with the movement often criticized for not yet coalescing around clearly identifiable aims.
Representative democracy
Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...
, where political decisions are made not by the people themselves but by elected representatives.
Participatory democracy strives to create opportunities for all members of a political group to make meaningful contributions to decision-making, and seeks to broaden the range of people who have access to such opportunities. Because so much information must be gathered for the overall decision-making process to succeed, technology may provide important forces leading to the type of empowerment
Empowerment
Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, racial, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and communities...
needed for participatory models, especially those technological tools that enable community narratives and correspond to the accretion of knowledge. Effectively increasing the scale of participation, and translating small but effective participation groups into small world networks, are areas currently being studied.
Some scholars argue for refocusing the term on community-based activity within the domain of civil society
Civil society
Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...
, based on the belief that a strong non-governmental public sphere
Public sphere
The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action...
is a precondition for the emergence of a strong liberal democracy
Liberal democracy
Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...
. These scholars tend to stress the value of separation between the realm of civil society and the formal political realm. In 2011, considerable grass roots interest in participatory democracy was generated by the Occupy movement
Occupy movement
The Occupy movement is an international protest movement which is primarily directed against economic and social inequality. The first Occupy protest to be widely covered was Occupy Wall Street in New York City, taking place on September 17, 2011...
.
Political variants
Political variants of participatory democracy include:
|
Direct democracy Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"... Grassroots democracy Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as practical is shifted to the organization's lowest geographic level of organization: principle of subsidiarity.... Non-partisan democracy Nonpartisan democracy is a system of representative government or organization such that universal and periodic elections take place without reference to political parties.-Overview:... Sociocracy Sociocracy is a system of governance, using consent-based decision making among equivalent individuals and an organizational structure based on cybernetic principles... |
Representative democracy
Representative democracy
Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...
is not generally considered participatory. Bioregional democracy is often but not necessarily participatory. Grassroots democracy
Grassroots democracy
Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as practical is shifted to the organization's lowest geographic level of organization: principle of subsidiarity....
is an alternative term that has been used to imply almost any combination of the above.
New concepts such as open source governance
Open source governance
Open-source governance is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles in order to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is...
, collaborative governance
Collaborative governance
Collaborative governance is a process and a form of governance in which participants representing different interests are collectively empowered to make a policy decision or make recommendations to a final decision-maker who will not substantially change consensus recommendations from the...
, open source politics, and open politics seek to radically increase participation through electronic collaboration tools such as wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
s and 'wikigovernment'.
Participatory politics
Participatory politics
Participatory politics or parpolity is a theoretical political system proposed by Stephen R. Shalom, professor of political science at William Paterson University in New Jersey....
(or parpolity) is a long-range political theory that also incorporates many of the above and strives to create a political system that will allow people to participate in politics, as much as possible in a face-to-face manner.
Panocracy or 'pantocracy' also has similarities with participatory democracy. However, it avoids the concept of demos or the people having a single view with the inevitable limitations that come from trying to agree what that view is. It also avoids the expectations that attach to anything called democracy.
Demarchy
Demarchy
Demarchy is a form of government in which the state is governed by randomly selected decision makers who have been selected by sortition from a broadly inclusive pool of eligible citizens...
is a hypothetical system where government is heavily decentralized into smaller independent groups. Each group is responsible for one or several functions in society. Officials are volunteers elected to committees controlling these groups by sortition
Sortition
In politics, sortition is the selection of decision makers by lottery. The decision-makers are chosen as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates....
. The system seeks to avoid problems with centralized and electoral governance, while still providing a stable democratic system.
History
Participatory democracy has been a feature of human society since at least classical times. It is believed to have been a common practice of undeveloped people and hunter gather tribes. In 8th and 7th century Ancient GreeceAncient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, the informal distributed power structure of the villages and minor towns began to be displaced with collectives of Oligarchs seizing power as the villages and towns coalesced into city states. This caused much hardship and discontent among the common people, with many having to sell their land due to debts, and even suffer from debt slavery. At around 600BC Solon
Solon
Solon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens...
initiated some reforms to limit the power of Oligarchs and re-establish a partial form of participatory democracy with some decisions taken by a poplar assembly composed of all free male citizens. About a century later, Solon's reforms were further enhanced for even more direct involement of regular citizens by Cleisthenes
Cleisthenes
Cleisthenes was a noble Athenian of the Alcmaeonid family. He is credited with reforming the constitution of ancient Athens and setting it on a democratic footing in 508/7 BC...
.
A brief period where a region was governed almost totally by participatory democracy occurred during the Spanish civil war
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, from 1936-1938, in the parts of Spain controlled by anarchist republicans. In 1938 the anarchists were displaced after being turned on by their former republican allies in the Communist party as well as suffering attacks by the loyalist forces of General Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
. The writer George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
, who experienced participatory democracy as he was in Spain with the anarchists before their defeat, discusses it in his book Homage to Catalonia
Homage to Catalonia
Homage to Catalonia is political journalist and novelist George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War. The first edition was published in 1938. The book was not published in the United States until February 1952. The American edition had a preface...
, and says participatory democracy was a "strange and valuable" experience where one could "breath the air of equality" and where normal human motives like snobbishness, greed and fear of authority had ceased to exist.
The mystic and philosopher Simone Weil
Simone Weil
Simone Weil , was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist.-Biography:Weil was born in Paris to Alsatian agnostic Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. She grew up in comfortable circumstances, and her father was a doctor. Her only sibling was...
, who had helped the Spanish anarchists as a combat soldier, would later promote participatory democracy in her political manifesto The Need for Roots
The Need for Roots
The Need for Roots: prelude towards a declaration of duties towards mankind is a book by Simone Weil. It was first published in French in 1949, titled L'Enracinement. The first English translation was published in 1952...
.
In the 1960s the promotion and use of participatory democracy was a major theme for elements of the American Left.
In the 1980s, the profile of participatory democracy within academia was raised by James Friskin, the professor who coined the phrase "deliberative democracy". Experiments in participatory democracy began in cities such as Brazil's Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...
. A World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
study found that participatory democracy in theese cities seemed to result in considerable improvement in the quality of life for residents.
In the early 21st century, low profile experiments in participatory democracy began to spread throughout South and North Americas and also to Great Britain. A partial example in the USA occurred with drawing up the plans to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
, with thousands of ordinary citizens involved with drafting and approving the plan. In 2011, participatory democracy became a notable feature of the occupy movement, with occupy camps around the world taking decisions based on the outcome of working groups where every protestor gets to have their say, and by general assemblies where the decisions taken by working groups are effectively aggregated together. Those involved with the occupy movement have been described as very much attached to their forms of participatory democracy, even to the extent of "fetishizing it." .
Features
Studies by Professor James Fishkin and others have found that participatory democracy tends to produce discussions which are superior in many ways to those publically witnessed in regular representative democracy. There is said to be less partisanship and more sympathy with opposing views. More respect for evidence based reasoning rather than opinion. A greater chance for widely shared consensus to emerge. And a much great commitment to the decisions taken by those involved. Former diplomat Carne Ross also says the debates arising from participatory democracy are also much more civil , collaborative and evidence based than the debates one sees in traditional town hall meetings or in internet forums. For Ross the key reason for this is that in participatory democracy citizens are not just there to blow off steam or pass the time, they have agency, the power to make decisions and know that their debates will have a real world impact.An issue with participatory democracy is that it is in tension with the much more common representative form of democracy - ultimately decision making power must rest at only one level, agency must be either with the people or their representatives. An issue that has been often commented on since the advent of the occupy movement is that participatory democracy can be a very slow means of making decisions, with the movement often criticized for not yet coalescing around clearly identifiable aims.
Social movements practicing participatory democracy
- Abahlali baseMjondoloAbahlali baseMjondoloAbahlali baseMjondolo , also known as AbM or the red shirts is a shack-dwellers' movement in South Africa which is well known for its campaigning for public housing. The movement grew out of a road blockade organized from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban in early 2005 and now...
- South African shack dwellers' movement - Bolivarian RevolutionBolivarian RevolutionThe “Bolivarian Revolution” refers to a leftist social movement and political process in Venezuela led by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, the founder of the Fifth Republic Movement...
in VenezuelaVenezuelaVenezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south... - Inclusive DemocracyInclusive DemocracyInclusive Democracy is a political theory and political project that aims for direct democracy, economic democracy in a stateless, moneyless and marketless economy, self-management and ecological democracy...
- Takis FotopoulosTakis FotopoulosTakis Fotopoulos , born , is a political philosopher and economist who founded the inclusive democracy movement. He is noted for his synthesis of the classical democracy with the libertarian socialism and the radical currents in the new social movements...
' Inclusive Democracy Project & Journal of Inclusive Democracy - Homeless Workers' MovementHomeless Workers' MovementThe Homeless Workers Movement is a shack-dwellers' movement in Brazil. It originated from the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra in 1997...
- Brazilian shack dwellers' movement - Landless People's Movement - South African movement of people without land
- Landless Workers' MovementLandless Workers' MovementLandless Workers' Movement is a social movement in Brazil; it is the second largest social movement in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 million landless members in 23 out of Brazil's 26 states. The MST states it carries out land reform in a country it sees as mired by unjust land distribution...
- Brazilian landless people's movement - Libyan Arab Jamahiriya - A national direct democracy movement (see also General People's Congress, Basic People's CongressBasic People's CongressBasic People's Congress is a term related to the former Libyan political system. It can refer to one of the following:*Basic People's Congress *Basic People's Congress...
, and General People's Committee) - Narmada Bachao AndolanNarmada Bachao AndolanNarmada Bachao Andolan is social movement consisting of tribal people, adivasis, farmers, environmentalists and human rights activists against the Sardar Sarovar Dam being built across the Narmada river, Gujarat, India....
in IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world... - Open democratic - A system for internal management of a political party democratically.
- Students for a Democratic SocietyStudents for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
- United States students movement in the 1960s and again in 2006Students for a Democratic Society (2006 organization)Students for a Democratic Society is a United States student organization representing left wing beliefs. It takes its name and inspiration from the original SDS of 1960-1969, then the largest radical student organization in US history...
. - Western Cape Anti-Eviction CampaignWestern Cape Anti-Eviction CampaignThe Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign is a non-racial popular movement made up of poor and oppressed communities in Cape Town, South Africa...
- Militant poor people's movement in Cape Town - Zapatista Army of National LiberationZapatista Army of National LiberationThe Zapatista Army of National Liberation is a revolutionary leftist group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico....
- Mexican indigenous people's movement - Occupy movementOccupy movementThe Occupy movement is an international protest movement which is primarily directed against economic and social inequality. The first Occupy protest to be widely covered was Occupy Wall Street in New York City, taking place on September 17, 2011...
- an international protest movement that started in 2011
See also
|
Participatory economics Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is an economic system proposed primarily by activist and political theorist Michael Albert and radical economist Robin Hahnel, among others. It uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the production, consumption and... Participatory justice Participatory justice is the use of alternative dispute resolution, such as mediation, conciliation, and arbitration, in criminal justice systems, instead of, or before, going to court... Public incubator A Public Incubator is similar to a Business Incubator, though it's intent is to accelerate the development of ideas for the benefit of the public good. Many Universities and non-profit organization succeed in a goal of public good, though few if any provide a democratic process of refinement... Public sphere The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action... Public participation Public participation is a political principle or practice, and may also be recognised as a right . The terms public participation may be used interchangeably with the concept or practice of stakeholder engagement and/or popular participation.Generally public participation seeks and facilitates the... Radical transparency Radical transparency is a management approach in which all decision making is carried out publicly. The term was used by Daniel Goleman in his book... Rationality and power Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice is a book authored by Oxford University professor Bent Flyvbjerg and published by The University of Chicago Press . The book is a study of how power influences rationality and democracy. The book's theory and method build on a tradition in power studies... Sociocracy Sociocracy is a system of governance, using consent-based decision making among equivalent individuals and an organizational structure based on cybernetic principles... Workers' council A workers' council, or revolutionary councils, is the phenomenon where a single place of work or enterprise, such as a factory, school, or farm, is controlled collectively by the workers of that workplace, through the core principle of temporary and instantly revocable delegates.In a system with... |
External links
- Real Direct Democracy Now Blog - Real Direct Democracy Now
- Collaborative governance projects – List of projects
- The Citizen's Handbook
- ParticipatoryDemocracy.net - Bilingual site (English & Spanish) sponsored by Participatory Democracia Cultural Initiative, an international non-for-profit association of volunteers devoted to the promotion of participatory democracy and human rights
- FAL - Forum de Autoridades Locales (Multilingual site) The World network of Local Authorities linked to promote Social Inclusion and Participatory Democracy
- Metagovernment - Open source governanceOpen source governanceOpen-source governance is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles in order to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is...
project aimed at replacing all governments with scored wikis - Rete del Nuovo Municipio (Italian) The Italian project for promoting participatory democracy, linking up local authorities, scientists and local committees.
- European Citizens' Initiative - Campaign for more participation rights for citizens of the European Union
- Athens Project - Organization dedicated to promoting Participatory Democracy by helping direct access democracy candidates run for office — Independent organization.
- Africa Project for Participatory Society
- Participatory democracy in Porto Alegre, Brazil - International Institute for Environment and Development
- Citizens Assembly Blog — J.H. Snider's blog covering citizens assembly developments worldwide
- E-participation and the future of democracy
- European Citizens' Panel on the roles of rural areas in tomorrow's Europe
- Participation through action research
- Stakeholders and participatory democracy related to the MDGs
- “Competitive Representation” vs “Participation and Deliberation” - An analysis from theotherschoolofeconomics.org on the paper 'Radical Democracy' by Cohen (MIT) & Fung (Harvard Uni).
- Agenda 21 for culture - Reference document of the local governments to draw up their cultural policies, based on the principles of cultural diversity, human rights, intercultural dialogue, participatory democracy, sustainability and peace.