Citizen Participation and Democratic Innovations

Abstract

‘Over the past two decades we have heard an historically unprecedented volume of talk about and praise of democracy’ (Pateman, 2012: 7). This ‘new spirit of democracy’ (Blondiaux, 2008) not only is characterised by a new discourse but also by a diffusion of various participatory initiatives (Cain et al., 2003; Font, 2003a; Saward, 2000; Smith, 2009)1 as well as the development of democratic theory, particularly participatory and, even more so, deliberative theories of democracy. This chapter provides an overview of this development, of which PB has been integral part. It will first present different perspectives of the current trends and problems of democratic regimes and then present the actors involved in the diffusion of participatory institutions (particularly PB) as well as the possible goals related to them. The third section presents a classification of participatory institutions and the definition and evaluation criteria of democratic innovations. The final part provides a short overview of participatory and deliberative theories of democracy that have been used to analyse the worldwide diffusion of participatory initiatives, but have also been modified in relation to local innovations like the Porto Alegre process of PB.