Participatory democracy

In 7th and 8th century BCE Ancient Greece, 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. Around 600 BCE the Athenian leader 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 popular assembly composed of all free male citizens. About a century later, Solon's reforms were further enhanced for even more direct involvement of regular citizens by Cleisthenes.[12] Athenian democracy came to an end in 322 BC. When democracy was revived as a political system about 2000 years later, decisions were made by representatives rather than by the people themselves. A minor exception to this was the limited form of direct democracy which flourished in the Swiss Cantons from the later Middle Ages.

An ephemerous but notorious instance, taking place in the Modern Age, was the Paris Commune of 1871, which married the universal political engagement of participatory democracy with a correspondent collective ownership and management of the means of production, which, like participatory democracy itself, was a demand of the nascent organized left-wing. In the late 19th century, a small number of thinkers, including Karl Marx,[13] Friedrich Engels, Mikhail Bakunin[14]—all highly influenced, along with their International Working Men's Association, by the Commune–and Oscar Wilde[15] began advocating increased participatory democracy. It was in the 20th century that practical implementations of participatory democracy once again began to take place, albeit mostly on a small scale, attracting considerable academic attention in the 1980s.[16][17]

During the Spanish civil war, from 1936–1938, the parts of Spain controlled by anarchist members of the Spanish Republican faction was governed almost totally by participatory democracy. In 1938 the anarchists were displaced after betrayal by their former Republican allies in the Communist party and attacks from the Nationalist forces of General Franco. The writer George Orwell, who experienced participatory democracy 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 breathe "the air of equality" and where normal human motives like snobbishness, greed, and fear of authority had ceased to exist.[17]

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.[18]

In the 1980s, the profile of participatory democracy within academia was raised by James S. Fishkin, the professor who introduced the deliberative opinion poll. Experiments in forms of participatory democracy that took place within a wider framework of representative democracy began in cities around the world, with an early adopter being Brazil's Porto Alegre. A World Bank study found that participatory democracy in these cities seemed to result in considerable improvement in the quality of life for residents.[17]

In the early-21st century, low-profile experiments in participatory democracy began to spread throughout South and North America, to China and across the European Union.[19][20] A partial example in the USA occurred with drawing up the plans to rebuild New Orleans after 2005's Hurricane Katrina, with thousands of ordinary citizens involved in drafting and approving the plan.[17]

In recent years, social media have led to changes in the conduct of participatory democracy. In the 2016 United States elections social media spread news and many politicians used social-media outlets like Twitter to attract voters. Social media has helped to organize movements to demand change. Mainly through hashtags, citizens join political conversations with differing view-points.[21] To promote public interest and involvement, local governments have started using social media to make decisions based on public feedback.[22] Though it requires much commitment, citizens have organized committees to highlight local needs and appoint budget delegates who work with the citizens and city agencies.[23] In the Russian Federation, President Vladimir Putin's annual Direct Line television Q&A sessions, wherein he answers a selection of the hundreds of thousands of questions which Russians submit via telephones or social media, provides a degree of participation for ordinary citizens[24] - an updated, more interactive version of fireside chats.

In 2011 participatory democracy became a notable feature of the Occupy movement, a movement largely started by a Tumblr post (titled "We Are the 99 Percent") protesting and claiming that a few individuals held all the power. Occupy camps around the world made decisions based on the outcome of working groups where every protester had their say, and by general assemblies where the decisions taken by working groups were effectively aggregated together. Their decision process attempted to combine equality, mass participation, and deliberation, but made for slow decision-making. By November 2011 the movement had been frequently criticized for not yet coalescing around clearly identifiable aims.[25][26][27][28]

Main advocates of participatory democracy view it as an appropriate political development considering the inherent democratic deficiency in representative models. Generally argued as an intermediary between direct and representative democracy, participatory democracy's alleged strengths lie in greater citizen involvement, popular control, and egalitarian and non-exploitative social relations.

The most prominent argument for participatory democracy is its function of greater democratization. Although the extent of how 'democratized' societies should be may rely on sociocultural and economic contexts, Pateman claims, "[...] the argument is about changes that will make our own social and political life more democratic, that will provide opportunities for individuals to participate in decision-making in their everyday lives as well as in the wider political system. It is about democratizing democracy."[8] In such a democratized society, individuals or groups can not only pursue, but also realistically achieve their interests, ultimately "[providing] the means to a more just and rewarding society, not a strategy for preserving the status quo."[5]

Another proposed advantage participatory democracy over other democratic models is its educative effect. Initially promoted by Rousseau, Mill, and Cole, greater political participation can in turn lead the public to seek or accomplish higher qualities of participation in terms of efficacy and depth: "the more individuals participate the better able they become to do so"[5][8] Pateman emphasizes this potential because it precisely counteracts the widely spread lack of faith in citizen capacity, especially in advanced societies with complex organizations.[8] In this vein, J. Wolfe asserts his confidence in the feasibility of participatory models even in large-member organizations, which would progressively diminish state intervention as the most crucial mode of political change.[5]

The negative criticisms of participatory democracy generally align with exclusive advocacy for 'minimal democracy'. While some critics, such as David Plotke, call for a conciliatory medium between participatory and representative models, others are skeptical of the overly leftist democratic ideology. Two general oppositions can be found within the literature, the prior is the disbelief in citizen capabilities, considering how greater responsibilities come as participation grows. Michels rejects the feasibility of participatory models and goes so far as to refute the educative benefits of participatory democracy by delineating the lack of motivations for extensive participation to begin development: "First, the self-interested, rational member has little incentive to participate because he lacks the skills and knowledge to be effective, making it cost effective to rely on officials' expertise."[5] In other words, the motivation, or even desire, for participation is a misconceived understanding of the general will in politics.[5] By analyzing that the aggregate citizenry is rather disinterested and leader-dependent, the mechanism for participatory democracy is argued to be inherently incompatible with advanced societies.

Other concerns largely rest on the feasibility of effectively managing massive political input into an equally meaningful, responsive output. Plotke condemns the ideological element of universal participation since any institutional adjustment to employ greater political participation can never exclude a representative element.[7] Consequently, neither direct nor participatory democracy can be truly themselves without having some type of representation to sustain realistically a stable political system. Such examination derives from the supposed impossibility of achieving equitably direct participation in large and populated regions. Plotke ultimately argues in favor of representation over participation and criticizes the misconception by participatory democrats of "representation [as] an unfortunate compromise between an ideal of direct democracy and messy realities."[7]

Representative democracy is not generally considered participatory since it tends to assume a lack of time, knowledge or will in individual citizens to contribute to policy making.[29]

Pateman[30] characterizes the participatory model as one where maximum input (participation) is required, and where output includes not only policies but also the development of the social and political capacities of each individual. The literature generally emphasizes this combination of influence on policy making, quality of deliberation, and citizen engagement based on what has been argued that a successful institution of citizen participation is one that (i) provides a channel of influence in policy making, (ii) engages citizens in a process of deliberation and public communication, which in return provides legitimacy to the institution, and (iii) is able to attract a constant or increasing number of participants.

Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere voting, is the primary source of a law's legitimacy. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. When practiced by small groups, it is possible for decision-making to be both fully participatory and deliberative. But for large political entities, the democratic reform trilemma makes it difficult for any system of decision-making based on political equality to involve both deliberation and inclusive participation. With mass participation, deliberation becomes so unwieldy that it becomes difficult for each participant to contribute substantially to the discussion. James Fishkin argues that random sampling to get a small but representative sample of the general population can mitigate the trilemma, but notes that the resulting decision-making group is not open to mass participation.[31][32]

Direct or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which people decide on policy initiatives directly. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are representative democracies.