Participatory democracy or participative democracy is a model of democracy in which citizens are provided power to make political decisions. Etymological roots of democracy (Greek demos and kratos) imply that the people are in power, making all democracies participatory to some degree. However, participatory democracy tends to advocate greater citizen participation and more direct representation than traditional representative democracy.
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Scholars, including Graham Smith in Democratic Innovations, have recently considered several mechanisms to create more participatory democratic systems, ranging from the use of referendums to the creation of deliberative citizens' assemblies. As contrasted with the mechanism of elections, these proposals intend to increase the agenda-setting and decision-making powers of the people through giving citizens' more direct ways to contribute to politics, as opposed to indirectly choosing representatives through voting.
Also called citizens' assemblies, mini-publics are representative samples of the population at large that meet to advise other legislative bodies or to write laws themselves. Because citizens are chosen to participate by stratified sampling, the assemblies are more representative of the population as a whole as compared to elected legislatures whose representatives are often disproportionally wealthy, male, and white.[43] Mini-publics chosen by sortition thus provide average citizens the opportunity to exercise substantive agenda-setting and/or decision-making power. Over the course of the assembly, citizens are guided by experts and discussion facilitators to ensure meaningful deliberation. The results of mini-publics typically culminate in reports to be sent to the government or proposals that are directly sent to the people via referendums. Critics of mini-publics have raised concerns about their perceived legitimacy. For instance, political scientist Daan Jacobs finds that the perceived legitimacy of mini-publics is higher than a system in which no participation is permitted but not higher than any system involving self-selection, like elections.[44] Regardless, the use of mini-publics has grown in recent years and they have often been used to pursue constitutional reforms, such as in British Columbia's Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform in 2004 and the Irish Constitutional Convention in 2012.
In binding referendums, citizens vote on laws and/or constitutional amendments proposed by a legislative body.[46] Referendums afford citizens greater decision-making power by giving them the ultimate choice in the passage of legislation. Citizens may also use referendums to engage in agenda-setting power if they are allowed to draft proposals to be put to referenda in efforts called initiatives. Referendums may be made increasingly participatory by using a mandatory vote system that requires participation amongst all citizens. However, despite providing the people with additional political power, political theorist Hélène Landemore raises the concern that referendums may fail to be sufficiently deliberative, meaning that the people are unable to engage in discussions and debate that may enhance their decision-making abilities and wielding of political power. A rigorous system of referendums is currently used in Switzerland, under which all laws architected by the legislature go to referendums. Swiss citizens may also enact popular initiatives: a process whereby citizens can put forward a constitutional amendment or the removal of an existing provision, if the proposal receives signatures by one hundred thousand citizens.
E-democracy is an umbrella term used to describe a variety of proposals made to increase participation through the utilization of technology.[49] Open discussion forums, for example, provide citizens the opportunity to debate policy online while facilitators guide discussion. These forums normally serve agenda-setting purposes or may be used to provide legislators with additional testimony when considering the passage of legislation. Closed forums may be used to discuss more sensitive information. In the UK, a closed discussion forum was used to enable domestic violence survivors to provide testimony to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Domestic Violence and Abuse while preserving the anonymity of survivors. Another e-democratic mechanism is online deliberative polling, a system under which citizens are provided the opportunity to deliberate with peers virtually before answering a poll question. The results of deliberative polls are more likely to reflect the considered judgments of the people and are thought to be a better way to assess public opinion while encouraging increased citizen awareness of civic issues.
In a form of more local participatory democracy, town meetings provide all residents with legislative power. Practiced in the United States, particularly in New England, since the 17th century, town meetings assure that local policy decisions are made directly by members of the public without any intermediaries. Local democracy is often seen as the first step in producing a more participatory system; as said by democratic scholar Frank M. Bryan, "For real democracy small not only is beautiful, it is essential." Theorist Graham Smith, however, notes the inherently limited impact of town meetings which focus on local issues and cannot bring about action on larger, national issues. He also suggests that town meetings are not representative of the town as a whole as they disproportionately represent individuals with free time, including the elderly and the affluent. Nevertheless, New Hampshire continues to use a streamlined version of town meetings in which every voter is a legislator, and all issues may be put to a legally binding vote as long as its subject matter was placed on the warrant, a type of agenda.
The system of participatory budgeting allows citizens to make decisions on the allocation of a public budget. With origins in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the general procedure of the participatory budgeting involves the creation of a concrete financial plan that serves as a recommendation to elected representatives. Importantly, under the Brazilian system, neighborhoods are given the authority to design budgets for the greater region, with local proposals being brought to elected regional budget forums. The incorporation of deliberative processes in participatory budgeting has allowed for a decrease in clientelism and corruption as well as increased levels of participation, particularly amongst marginalized or poorer residents.Theorist Graham Smith observes that participatory budgeting still has some barriers to entry for the poorest members of the population.
In a hybrid between direct and representative democracy, liquid democracy permits individuals to vote on issues themselves or to select issue-competent delegates to vote on their behalf. Political scientists Christian Blum and Christina Isabel Zuber suggest that liquid democracy has the potential to improve a legislature's performance through bringing together delegates with a greater issue awareness, thus taking advantage of epistemic knowledge within the populace. In order to make liquid democracy more deliberative, a trustee model of delegation may be implemented in which the delegates are free to vote as they see fit following deliberation with other representatives. Some concerns have been raised about the implementation of liquid democracy; Blum and Zuber, for example, find that liquid democracy produces two distinct participative classes of voters: individuals with one vote and delegates with two or more votes. Blum and Zuber also worry that the policy produced in issue-specific legislatures will lack cohesiveness if each group has separate and independent delegates. Today, liquid democracy is utilized by Pirate Parties, groups known for their support for more democratic reforms and greater internet transparency, for intra-party decision-making.
Trademarked by Stanford professor James Fishkin, deliberative opinion polls permit citizens to develop informed opinions following a period of deliberation. Deliberative polling begins with surveying a random representative sample of citizens to gage their raw opinion. These same individuals are then invited to deliberate for a weekend in the presence of political leaders, competing experts, and trained moderators. At the end of the deliberation, the group is surveyed again, and the final opinions of the group are taken to be representative of the conclusion that the public would reach provided they had opportunities to engage with the issues more deeply. There are many examples of deliberative polling being used around the world: in 2008, Fishkin and team conducted a deliberative poll in Poznan, Poland to decide the fate of a Euro Cup stadium after 2012, and, in South Korea in 2011, a deliberative poll was used to discuss the issue of Korean Unification. Cristina Lafont, a critic of deliberative polling, argues that the "filtered" (informed) opinion reached at the end of a deliberative poll is too far removed from the opinion of the citizenry as a whole, thus delegitimizing the actions taken in the name of the poll.[58] Conversely, Fishkin and other proponents find deliberative polling to be a "poll with a human face" that can be used in tandem with other participatory mechanisms to reflect the normatively desirable informed will of the people.
This analysis of the operation of Rousseau's participatory system makes two points clear; first, that 'participation' for Rousseau is participation in the making of decisions and second, that it is, as in theories of representative government, a way of protecting private interests and ensuring good government. But participation is considerably more than this in Rousseau's theory. Plamenatz (1963) has said of Rousseau that 'he turns our minds ... to considering how the social order affects the structure of human personality' (vol. I, p. 440), and it is the psychological impact of social and political institutions that is Rousseau's main concern; which aspect of men's characters do particular institutions develop? The crucial variable here is whether or not the institution is a participatory one and the central function of participation in Rousseau's theory is an educative one, using the term 'education' in the widest sense. Rousseau's ideal system is designed to develop responsible, individual social and political action through the effect of the participatory process. During this process, the individual learns ... he has to take into account wider matters than his own immediate private interests if he is to gain co-operation from others, and he learns that the public and private interest are linked. The logic of the operation of the participatory system is such that he is 'forced' to deliberate according to his sense of justice, according to what Rousseau calls his 'constant will' because fellow citizens can always resist the implementation of inequitable demands. As a result of participating in decision making the individual is educated to distinguish between his own impulses and desires, he learns to be a public as well as private citizen. Rousseau also believes that through this educative process the individual will eventually come to feel little or no conflict between the demands of the public and private spheres. Once the participatory system is established, and this is a point of major importance, it becomes self-sustaining becuase the very qualities that are required of individual citizens if the system is to work successfully are those that the process of participation itself develops and fosters; the more the individual citizen participates the better he is able to do so. The human results that accure through the participatory process provide an important justification for the participatory system.
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