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Participatory democracy is inclusive, requires practice and reflection, accepts and absorbs conflict, actively addresses dissent, and pays attention to those who speak softly or who are on the margins."
Participatory democracy is inclusive, requires practice and reflection, accepts and absorbs conflict, actively addresses dissent, and pays attention to those who speak softly or who are on the margins."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_democracy)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_democracy)
=Discussion=
==Socialism, direct democracy and delegated democracy==
Martha Harnecker:
"35. We have said that the society we want to build – which we have called 21st-century socialism — seeks to create the conditions for full human development in a cooperative society and that full human development can only be achieved through practice, that is, people transform, or fully develop themselves at the same time as they struggle to change their circumstances, to create the conditions for the new cooperative society, thereby overcoming the inherited culture and practicing new values such as solidarity and respect for differences.
36. As such, democratic participation, popular protagonism, is one of the essential features of socialism.
37. That is why Alfredo Maneiro – a Venezuelan intellectual and political leader – maintained that it was not simply about injecting bourgeois democracy with a social content, by placing emphasis on the resolution of social problems: food, health, education, etc. Rather, the focus had to be on transforming the inherited form of democracy, creating spaces that enabled people to struggle to change their circumstances, while in the process transforming themselves.
38. It is not the same, said Maneiro, for a community to win a footbridge having organized themselves and fought for it, than for them to receive the footbridge as a gift from the state. The paternalism of the state is incompatible with popular protagonism. It ends up transforming people into beggars. It is necessary to go from a culture based on citizens that beg towards a culture based on citizens that conquer, that make decisions, that execute and control, that self-organize, that self-govern. We have to move from a government for the people to the self-government of the people, where the people really take power, as Aristóbulo Istúriz said.
39. This participatory and protagonistic democracy is not a democracy solely for the elites, as bourgeois representative democracy is; it is a democracy for the great majority of the people. Within it, the common citizen can participate in a variety of manners, not only in formulating demands and supervision, but fundamentally in making decisions and ensuring they are carried out.
40. As Pablo Anzalone[24], a Uruguayan political leader said, it is about constructing democratic processes where the great popular majorities are incorporating into the political arena, both within institutions as well as in practice. This requires a reformulation of the idea of politics, recuperating and emphasizing participatory mechanisms from the local to the national level."
(http://ouleft.sp-mesolite.tilted.net/?p=1023)




Revision as of 23:42, 21 September 2012

Participatory Democracy

From the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_democracy


Definition

"Participatory democracy is a deliberative dialog and decision making process which hears all voices and diverse perspectives to enact meaningful change.

Ideally, it would be an equitable process embarked upon by a group empowered with decision-making authority, surfacing a deeper understanding of issues, and is consolidated around a common purpose, forging a collective decision out of individual interests.

Participatory democracy is inclusive, requires practice and reflection, accepts and absorbs conflict, actively addresses dissent, and pays attention to those who speak softly or who are on the margins." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_democracy)


Discussion

Socialism, direct democracy and delegated democracy

Martha Harnecker:

"35. We have said that the society we want to build – which we have called 21st-century socialism — seeks to create the conditions for full human development in a cooperative society and that full human development can only be achieved through practice, that is, people transform, or fully develop themselves at the same time as they struggle to change their circumstances, to create the conditions for the new cooperative society, thereby overcoming the inherited culture and practicing new values such as solidarity and respect for differences.

36. As such, democratic participation, popular protagonism, is one of the essential features of socialism.

37. That is why Alfredo Maneiro – a Venezuelan intellectual and political leader – maintained that it was not simply about injecting bourgeois democracy with a social content, by placing emphasis on the resolution of social problems: food, health, education, etc. Rather, the focus had to be on transforming the inherited form of democracy, creating spaces that enabled people to struggle to change their circumstances, while in the process transforming themselves.

38. It is not the same, said Maneiro, for a community to win a footbridge having organized themselves and fought for it, than for them to receive the footbridge as a gift from the state. The paternalism of the state is incompatible with popular protagonism. It ends up transforming people into beggars. It is necessary to go from a culture based on citizens that beg towards a culture based on citizens that conquer, that make decisions, that execute and control, that self-organize, that self-govern. We have to move from a government for the people to the self-government of the people, where the people really take power, as Aristóbulo Istúriz said.

39. This participatory and protagonistic democracy is not a democracy solely for the elites, as bourgeois representative democracy is; it is a democracy for the great majority of the people. Within it, the common citizen can participate in a variety of manners, not only in formulating demands and supervision, but fundamentally in making decisions and ensuring they are carried out.

40. As Pablo Anzalone[24], a Uruguayan political leader said, it is about constructing democratic processes where the great popular majorities are incorporating into the political arena, both within institutions as well as in practice. This requires a reformulation of the idea of politics, recuperating and emphasizing participatory mechanisms from the local to the national level." (http://ouleft.sp-mesolite.tilted.net/?p=1023)


Key Books to Read

Participatory Democracy: Prospects for Democratizing Democracy. Edited by Dimitrios Roussopoulos and C. George Benello. New Edition. Montréal, New York: Black Rose Books, 2005.

“This wide-ranging collection probes the historical roots of participatory democracy in our political culture, analyzes its application to the problems of modern society, and explores the possible forms it might take on every level of society from the work place, to the community, to the nation at large. Part II, ‘The Politics of Participatory Democracy,’ covers Porto Alegre, Montreal, the new Urban ecology, and direct democracy." (http://escapingthematrix.org/resources.html)


More Information

See also: Direct Democracy


Videos on Participatory Democracy on Youtube

A lot of good videos about participatory democracy including participatory budgeting from http://www.vitalizing-democracy.org/









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