Participatory Politics - Introduction

Weakening of Democracy - The Present System of People's Representatives and Their Practices

The present day democracies, practiced in many countries, based on people's representatives making laws,, approving budgets and monitoring administrators has made people irrelevant in the political system except for voting once in four or five years. It was commented that "we all often witness, is that ordinary citizens have been sidelined from important facets of political life, from sharing public goods, engaging in dialogue, and deliberating, to judging and deciding public issues. Citizens have also lost the pleasure of participation itself."

Scholars on political systems are advocating participatory politics to strengthening democracy.  Youth Participatory Politics Research Network, of Harvard University recommend five activities as part of participation.

Since the 1960s, participatory decision-making processes are being advocated in a variety of sectors of society and of policy domains around the world. This line of thought emanated from the strong critics  of liberal and representative democracy.  Habermas published a book in German in 1962 that was translated into English as "The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society" (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989).

Participatory mechanisms were initially conceived and designed as a way for citizens’ views and input to have some influence on the political and bureaucratic decision-making processes of the government. It was also imagined that they would become tools for making elected leaders accountable for their decisions, and for citizens to become empowered through the participatory process. The idea of participation has also attracted attention fo scholar developing  ‘good governance’ literature.  It is thought that participatory politics can be a way to make local governments  more transparent, responsive, and in turn more efficient with regard to public spending, as well as to make public decisions socially and politically acceptable.

Over the years, the participatory turn has given birth to a large array of heterogeneous participatory practices developed by a wide variety of organizations and groups. Among the best-known practices of citizen participation, we find examples such as participatory budgeting (PB), citizen councils, public consultations, neighborhood councils, participatory planning, etc. Participatory processes are associated with the idea of a top-down mechanism implemented to include citizen input in the public sector. It means the proponents accepts the institutional structure of parliament and Government consisting political appointees and pubic administrators but call for more active involvement of people and people's representatives in the government planning, budgeting and legislation making. There has to be mechanisms that facilitate communication between people representatives and people, people and public administrators, people political appointees. The digital media can provide efficient channels for this communication.

Participatory Politics - Five Types of Activities

Five clusters of activities are important vehicles for participatory politics: investigation, dialogue and feedback, circulation, production, and mobilization (for more details, see Kahne et al., (2014)).

• Investigation. People actively seek out, gather, and analyze political information about issues of public concern from a variety of sources. Questioning and checking the veracity of information, that is reports of various government bodies is essential here. Media plays an important role here and readers of media indicate the extent of participation.

• Dialogue and feedback. Politically active people voice their own perspectives at various spaces on- and offline, engaging actively in dialogues and practices of weighing in on issues of public concern. Forums have to be there to encourage the opinions and to create  gist of the dialogues. Bottom-up and collective feedback is to be encouraged in the society.

• Circulation. Information sharing with a broader audience is pivotal to gaining traction for change. Poltically active persons must get the opportunity to disseminate information in multiple ways both on- and offline. In the pre-Internet age, circulation was carried out mostly in offline gatherings; in our digital age, it is done almost ubiquitously and at far higher speeds in the form of one or two clicks.

• Production. Information has power. More individuals take interest in  politics check the veracity of information produced and controlled by a small group of elites. They also produce new information that introduces different perspectives than those produced by the mainstream powers.

• Mobilization. The ultimate goal of participatory politics is to have the political influence to influence planning and decision making. Public demonstration of support for a cause is necessary to persuade people's representatives as well as government to act in a particular direction. More active civic actors persuade and recruit others to join this collective action.

Taken together, these five sets of practices articulate the ways participatory politics work from agenda setting, opinion formation, and collective political action to political influence. The effort spent in each of these five activities differs from cause to cause. The assorted patterns of participation are the real essence and strength of participatory politics.


Kahne, J., Middaugh, E., & Allen, D. (2014). Youth, new media, and the rise of participatory politics. https://ypp.dmlcentral.net/sites/default/files/publications/YPP_WorkinPapers_Paper01_1.pdf

https://yppactionframe.fas.harvard.edu/blog/what-participatory-politics-0

Post made further to my comment on FaceBook

Participative politics is required. It is not just voting. People have to participate to the maximum they can. Rest only is to be left to people's representatives.

More reading

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/opinion/sunday/the-problem-with-participatory-democracy-is-the-participants.html

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/pol.2012.19

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_politics

Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age

Benjamin Barber
University of California Press, 2003 - History - 320 pages

Since its appearance twenty years ago, Benjamin R. Barber's Strong Democracy has been one of the primary standards against which political science thinking and writing is measured. Defined as the participation of all of the people in at least some aspects of self-government at least some of the time, Strong Democracy offers liberal society a new way of thinking about and of practicing democracy. Contrary to the commonly held view that an excess of democracy can undo liberal institutions, Barber argues that an excess of liberalism has undermined our democratic institutions and brought about the set of crises we still find ourselves struggling against: cynicism about voting, alienation, privatization, and the growing paralysis of public institutions. In a new preface Barber looks at the past twenty years and restates his argument, which seems, sadly, more pressing than ever.

Nonetheless, what it turned out to be is, as we all often witness, is that ordinary citizens have been sidelined from important facets of political life, from sharing public goods, engaging in dialogue, and deliberating, to judging and deciding public issues. Citizens have also lost the pleasure of participation itself.

https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Strong_Democracy.html?id=2YbevnCXAhgC

Participatory Politics: Next-Generation Tactics to Remake Public Spheres

Elisabeth Soep
MIT Press, 31-Jan-2014 - Computers - 83 pages

Although they may disavow politics as such, civic-minded young people use every means and media at their disposal to carry out the basic tasks of citizenship. Through a mix of face-to-face and digital methods, they deliberate on important issues and debate with peers and powerbrokers, redefining some key dynamics that govern civic life in the process. In Participatory Politics, Elisabeth Soep examines the specific tactics used by young people as they experiment with civic engagement. Drawing on her scholarly research and on her work as a media producer and educator, Soep identifies five tactics that are part of effective, equitable participatory politics among young people: Pivot Your Public (mobilizing civic capacity within popular culture engagements); Create Content Worlds (using inventive and interactive storytelling that sparks sharing); Forage for Information in public data archives; Code Up (using computational thinking to design tools, platforms, and spaces for public good); and Hide and Seek (protecting privacy and information sources). After describing these tactics as they manifest themselves in a range of youth-driven activities -- from the runaway spread of the video Kony 2012 to community hackathons -- Soep discusses concrete ideas for cultivating the new literacies that will enable young people to participate in public life. She goes on to consider some risks associated with these participatory tactics, including simplification and sensationalism, and ways to avoid them, and concludes with implications for future research and practice.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=stHMAgAAQBAJ

You can download the full book from https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/participatory-politics


Participatory Politics - Quotes - Short Statements
http://guide-india.blogspot.com/2017/08/participatory-politics-quotes-short.html



Updated 9 September 2017, 29 August 2017