| Participatory Democracy |
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| Written by John Dryzek |
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Today, the most widely applied kind of democracy is representative democracy, under which citizens elect representatives to make decisions (for example, in Parliament). Under participatory democracy, citizens themselves make the decisions. There are a number of different examples of participatory democracy in action. A tradition of town meetings exists in New England in the north-east of the US where all town citizens or residents can attend, speak on and provide input into key decisions and policies being developed for the town in question. In the city of Porto Alegre in Brazil (and elsewhere), participatory-budgeting provides opportunities for citizens to attend public meetings that form a process for determining the city's budget. In Switzerland, many decisions are made by referendums, in which every citizen can vote for or against a policy. Participatory democracy can also be found in the workplace, especially in conjunction with workers' cooperatives. The world's biggest such cooperative is Mondragon in Spain, composed of several thousand workers who can participate in making key decisions. Case for: Proponents of participatory democracy believe it will energise citizens and bring their enthusiasm and expertise to politics and policy making. This will help realise the democratic ideal of political equality because everyone can take part equally. It will also help bring about the other key ideal of popular control, which is exercised directly. Participation itself is also seen as the best way to educate people about politics. Participatory democrats believe that current representative democracy is too 'thin'; that voting among a menu of candidates fails to provide for effective citizen influence on policy making. They also see elections as very imperfect devices, open to manipulation by party organisations, spin doctors, clever advertising campaigns and the influence of those who can afford to give money to parties and candidates. Case against: Critics say that participatory democracy is unrealistic. Most people do not want to be bothered with the additional demands it makes on their time and attention; they have other things they prefer to do with their lives. So in practice, participatory processes are dominated by the small number of people who are willing to devote a lot of their time. In reality, attempts at participatory democracy are rare, and often short-lived, as people involved in them suffer burnout. Critics also say that often in participatory settings we see people being forced to conform to the dominant point of view, which they find undesirable. And when it comes to referendums, people can vote in ill-informed ways that do not respect the rights of others (especially unpopular minorities). |
