Participatory democracy
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Participatory democracy is a process emphasizing the broad involvement of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems. While etymological roots imply that any democracy would rely on the participation of its citizens (the Greek demos and kratos combine to suggest that "the people rule"), traditional representative democracies tend to limit citizen participation to voting, leaving actual governance to politicians.
Participatory democracy strives to create opportunities for all members of a political group to make meaningful contributions to decisionmaking, and seeks to broaden the range of people who have access to such opportunities.
Some scholars argue for refocusing the term 'participatory democracy' 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.[1] These scholars tend to stress the value of separation between the the realm of civil society and the formal political realm.[2]
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[edit] Political variants
Political variants of participatory democracy include:
- Anticipatory democracy
- Consensus democracy
- Deliberative democracy
- Direct democracy
- Non-partisan democracy
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.
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 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.
New concepts such as open source governance seek to radically increase participation through electronic collaboration tools such as wikis.
[edit] Green view
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There have been heated debates between different visions of what a specifically Green political process would entail. Some very partisan proponents of a specific form of participatory democracy have tended to start from the assumption that the only valid form of Green internal decision-making would involve some form of consensus decision-making married to a radically inclusive structure—with the wiki suggested as the model to emulate for all internal decision-making.
Other Greens have argued that this proposed system tends towards a rule by a very small number of self-selected members who have both the time and inclination to spend on a very cumbersome decision-making process. Large, mass-member political organizations, like the Green Party, have large numbers of members who are simply too busy or uninterested in, participating in a large number of meetings. They would rather place their trust in elected representatives and see the election of office holders not as the creation of a "ruling clique", but rather that of a simple division of labour.
Moreover, these same opponents to "participatory democracy" also believe that participation in decision-making should be rooted in a specific geographic community so individuals have reputations that precede them, and which their fellow members use to evaluate the wisdom of the positions they espouse (i.e. "grassroots democracy".)
As a result of the above problems, some Green Parties have slowly been disengaging themselves from the more innovative forms of internal decision-making that are loosely defined as "participatory" and have been progressively inching towards a system similar in form to that used by other large, mass member organizations. For example, in 2006 the Green Party of Canada passed a new constitution (by an 86% margin through a membership mail-in vote) that did away with previous experiements with either formal consensus or participatory systems.
[edit] Workplace variants
Workplace democracy is an application of methods generally used in politics in the economic enterprise, including the election or hiring of management by workers. These methods are inherently participatory since the daily work is being carried out by the people who have made the decision, who bear its consequences.
[edit] External links
- Athens Project - Organization dedicated to promoting Participatory Democracy by helping direct access democracy candidates run for office — Independent organization.
- Citizens Assembly Blog — J.H. Snider's blog covering citizens assembly developments worldwide
- Conference: Participatory democracy: current situation and opportunities provided by the European Constitution
- Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government - book and related articles by Joel S. Hirschhorn
- EESC conference on participatory democracy
- Demosphere Project - The project to develop a community based e-democracy framework using open source and interactive software.
- E-participation and the future of democracy
- European Citizens' Panel on the roles of rural areas in tomorrow's Europe
- European Citizens' Initiative - Campaign for more participation rights for citizens of the European Union
- Metagovernment - Open source governance project aimed at replacing all governments with scored wikis
- Participation through action research
- Stakeholders and participatory democracy related to the MDGs
- Voting methods resource page Includes a proposal for participatory democracy by means of a delegable proxy system.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society, edited by Simone Chambers and Will Kymlicka (Princeton University Press, 2002)
- ^ The Idea of Civil Society, by Adam B. Seligman (Princeton University Press, 1992)
