When the Executive Accidentally Supported the Movement: Participatory Democracy and the Rise of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

The Community Action Program (CAP) was one of the highest‐profile but least successful of President Johnson's Great Society programs. Pluralist and neo‐Marxist theories hold that the origins of CAP and the problems that the program encountered were rooted in the politics of interest group and racial conflict, respectively. Drawing on archival evidence, this article turns attention to the important, yet forgotten, administrative dimension of CAP. The decentralized features of CAP were developed as a strategy to manage the federal bureaucracy and avoid conflict with Congress. Ultimately, CAP floundered as the decentralized control of the program freed it from the political control of the White House. The article concludes with a discussion of the problems presidents face in managing the federal bureaucracy and how the development of CAP reflects Johnson's management style in enacting domestic policy goals.

Introduction. The article deals with the study of the essence and features of participatory democracy as one of the political and legal foundations of municipal power. Recognition of Ukraine as a social, democratic and legal state, as well as the establishment of a European integration course contributes to the improvement of legal provisions dedicated to the regulation of political activity of citizens and, in particular, participatory democracy. In today’s world, participatory democracy is a reflection of the practical positive European experience of citizen participation in the political and managerial sphere of society at the local level. Although, at first glance, participatory democracy seems to be a manifestation of purely political activity, not all forms of public activity belong to participatory democracy, just as participatory democracy is not limited to the political sphere. Summary of the main research results. The author studies the existing approaches to the interpretation of participatory democracy, and provides his own definition with the identification of specific characteristics, including: 1) public involvement in the management of state and public affairs at the local level; 2) territorial community as the smallest economic unit of participatory democracy; 3) the procedure for the response of public authorities to the institutions of participatory democracy is enshrined in law; 4) the basis of participatory democracy - direct public political participation; 5) participatory democracy is an independent form, along with direct and representative democracies. Two factors of actualization of participatory democracy are singled out: 1) the process of decentralization of public power - the reform of local self-government; and 2) the spread of information technology and the emergence of society as a post-industrial. The author states the following: 1) at the normative level there is no consolidation of democracy of participation; 2) in the scientific literature, along with the concept of “participatory democracy” there are also “local democracy”, “inclusive democracy”, “democracy of participation”, which are considered synonymous; 3) in the legal doctrine there is no common understanding of the concept of “participatory democracy”, which is due to the numerous views of scholars on the interpretation of this concept. Conclusions. It has been established that participatory democracy is a special form of democracy, the core of which is the direct public political participation of citizens at the level of local self-government, which contributes to the proper implementation of municipal public authority. It is noted that under the influence of information technology (informatization process), participatory democracy is gaining a new way of implementation, which is being transformed into e-participatory democracy, which is one of the components of digital democracy.

In this article we present a proposal of a scaled-up time bank and currency at the national level. The aim of such a time currency managed by the State (or any regional public power) would be to link a legal reduction of work time in the market sphere to the development of an active – participatory – citizenship, and a reduction of economic inequalities through a redistribution of wealth. Paradoxically, we spend much of our lives working in order to finance through taxes political and administrative activities that we could for the most part exercise ourselves, yet from which we are excluded because of the rationing of disposable political time and the liberal-bureaucratic constitution of the state. The proposal starts from the idea that taxes paid for by additional work in a capitalist economy can be at least partially replaced by transferring work hours from market to civic activities. It entails that the reduction of work time should be seen not only as a way to reduce unemployment in the market sphere, but also as a political device allowing the development of participatory democracy through the payment of taxes “in kind”, i.e. in hours of political and administrative activities. Moreover, the value of these activities could be recognized by a national time bank or treasury issuing a time currency which would be required in order to pay a democratically determined share of the tax burden. This device would be all the more interesting in that it would not necessarily imply lower salaries or re-investable profit. All that would be required is that reduced work hours be matched by tax cuts accompanied by corresponding cuts in public spending. The latter, in turn, would be offset by increased civic involvement in political activity and public services. The impact of this transfer of time on economic inequalities could be overwhelming but would depend on the tariff of national time currency in the legal tender market currency.

In June 1962, a group calling themselves Students for a Democratic Society gathered at a retreat in rural Michigan to discuss and revise their founding manifesto. The result of that meeting was the famous Port Huron Statement, a document that not only reflected their disenchantment with America's elite-controlled social and political institutions but also called for the creation of a in which all citizens engage in public and share the responsibility of political decision making.This demand for participatory democracy characterized the New Left ethos and captured the imagination of a generation of radicals and political activists from the late 1950s to the close of the 1960s. So, why did participatory democracy fail to materialize in any recognizable form? Why was it forced to retreat from mainstream public discourse into the academy? Its fate, political scientist Robert Lacey asserts, was determined in large part by its intellectual origins.The idea of participatory democracy germinated in the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, founders of American pragmatism, and fully blossomed in the work of John Dewey, who argued that democracy should (and could) be a way of life for every person. Dewey rested his democratic faith on three pragmatist tenets: truth is probabilistic and socially determined; humans are malleable and educable; and humans, endowed with free will, can act collectively for their individual and social betterment.When the realities of modern in the mid- to late-20th century posed serious challenges to these tenets, the very foundation of participatory democratic thought began to crumble. Yet, willfully disregarding the rubble, C. Wright Mills, Sheldon Wolin, Benjamin Barber, and other theorists have continued to support participatory democracy as a viable political idea. Today's participatory democrats have constructed a fragile theoretical enterprise that rests on questionable assumptions inherited from the pragmatist tradition about truth, human nature, and free will.Tracing the history of a salient idea in American political thought, Lacey elucidates the assumptions underlying participatory democracy, assesses both its usefulness and coherence, and ultimately reveals it to be less a theory than a faith - a faith that has largely failed to follow through on its promise.

Introduction. The article examines the evolution of the national legislation of Ukraine during the years of independence from the point of view of the formation of the legal basis for the implementation of forms of political activity of citizens, which are implemented with the help of information and communication technologies (ICT). The main regularities of the formation of national legislation in the researched area are identified, the main stages and directions of its development are highlighted, and the factors that influenced the content and dynamics of the relevant reforms are outlined. Summary of the main results of the study. The process of building an independent, democratic, legal state in Ukraine is directly related to the formation and development of the legal foundations of the information society, participatory democracy (democracy of participation) and e-governance, and in the context of the foundations of the legal status of an individual - with ensuring the right to participate in the management of state affairs and access to information. The legislative design of the newly proclaimed independent Ukrainian state took place in the conditions of the rapid transition of the world community from an industrial to an information society, which opened up new opportunities for democratic transit. The formation of the regulatory framework for the implementation of constitutional and legal forms of political activity of citizens, which are implemented with the help of ICT, had a consistent and progressive character, was carried out taking into account the existing technological level and features of the political system, as well as the foreign policy obligations of our state. Electronic democracy tools introduced in accordance with the constitutional legislation of Ukraine today include electronic voting in elections and referenda, electronic petitions, as well as consultations with the public, public hearings and discussion of draft legal acts of public administration bodies with the help of ICT. Conclusion. The conclusion that the process of formation of a regulatory and legal basis for the implementation of political activity of citizens with the help of ICT can be divided into four stages is justified: 1) preparatory stage (1990-1997) - the stage of formation of the constitutional and legal basis of political activity of citizens of Ukraine in the conditions democratic statehood; 2) the initial stage (1997-2007) - the stage of formation of the constitutional and legal foundations of informatization and development of the information society in Ukraine; 3) the central stage (2007-2018) - the stage of formation of the constitutional and legal foundations of "open government" and "electronic democracy"; 4) the modern stage (2019 to the present) is the stage of intensive development of legislation on legal forms of political activity of citizens using ICT under the leading role of the Ministry of Digital. The development of constitutional and legal foundations for the implementation of political activity of citizens in Ukraine took place and is taking place on a clear doctrinal and conceptual basis, taking into account Ukraine's international obligations and the real state of development of ICT and information relations in the public sphere. As a result, Ukraine is currently at the forefront of democratic states in the world in terms of the use of ICT in the implementation of "open government" and "participatory democracy".

Since Article 47 on participatory democracy was essentially a way of raising the profile of an existing mechanism (Perez Solorzano-Borragan 2007, 281), it has been suggested that it was little more than a way of making the Convention more popular (Lombardo 2007). Furthermore, it has been suggested that civil society had little say in this process, since the EU’s focus on participatory democracy is the result of the “continued activism of an elite forum of political, administrative and academic actors” (Saurugger 2010, 471). On the other hand, others have credited civil society with influencing the decision to include the ECI in the Treaty (del Rio Villar 2004, Lamassoure 2004, de Clerck-Sachsse 2012). Chapter 3 highlighted the fact that participatory democracy was used in the consultations that preceded the Convention in order to frame the self-interested demands by civil society organisations. It can thus be asked if this process influenced the Convention’s debate on participatory democracy. This chapter analyses how the agenda on participatory democracy made it to the Convention, and through which mechanisms civil society organisations brought it to the Convention’s agenda.

This article considers the contribution of radical South African philosopher Rick Turner to theories of ‘workers’ control’. Turner’s philosophical work, especially his book, The Eye of the Needle (1972), posited the work-place as a fundamental site of ‘participatory democracy’ and a space for the potential radical transformation of South African society. During the early 1970s, Turner’s philosophical writings, teaching at the University of Natal, and political activism in Durban helped galvanise a cohort of radical white students who joined in support of protesting black workers in the 1973 Durban mass strikes. The confluence of Turner’s ideas about workers’ control, the students’ activism, and the collective action of the black working class gave South Africa’s labour movement a radically democratic, shop-floor orientation that deserves a revival in the new South Africa.

The concept of Panchayati Raj has undergone several changes ever since its inception five decades back. These changes have come through various means, amendment to the constitution, corresponding changes to the various State Panchayati Raj Acts and through both positive (progressive) and negative (regressive) activities at the grassroots level by the participants themselves.The present study attempts to capture the political dynamics involved in the running of a Gram Panchayat. The first part of the paper focuses on the alliances and counter alliances made by the elected members to get elected to the posts of the Chairperson and the deputy chairperson, contrary to the general research conclusions that caste plays a predominant role in the Panchayati Raj institutions, especially in the village panchayats. This issue gains importance in the state of Karnataka where the top posts in PRIs are held on quota reservation system, (allotment of reservation to SCs/STs and women by rotation to different panchayat constituencies and various executive posts) something similar to the American system of Gerry(Jerry) mandering. The former is politico-social in nature while the latter is politico-geographical. The second part of the paper shows how after having made an alliance, the leadership, in informal terms, the ruling alliance, functions, responding to the demands of the alliance on the one hand and keeping at bay the opposition on the other. This paper is a qualitative analysis and shows how weak leaderships based on opportunistic alliances function and who gains from such a political phenomena. Further more, it shows how the bargaining power of the electorate from ‘the other side’(non-ruling alliance) is reduced to mere requests, and how the ruling alliance gets the developmental work done through their own people and for their own people. Panchayati Raj Institutions, which were supposed to be ‘participatory’ in nature is reduced to mere participation of the ruling alliance and how the people from ‘the other side’ (both elected members and the common villagers) respond to the dynamics. The paper concludes by showing how such political dynamics at the grassroots level weaken the real and original objective of taking governance to the people branding it ‘participatory democracy’ and how the weak leadership plays into the hands of the permanent executive. According to the statistics provided by the Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, government of India, there are about 231815 Gram Panchayats with a total number of 2186452 elected representatives. Each gram Panchayat is distinctively different from each other. The present paper attempts to analyse not the comprehensive developmental and political activities of the Gram Panchayat and compare it with other successful panchayats, but to observe how political dynamics within the leadership effects political and developmental activities in the villages and how the grassroots stakeholders respond to such dynamics.Though the 73rd amendment to the Indian Constitution visualized democratizing deliberative bodies at the grassroots level, the p resent study suggests that this ‘democracy’ is actually hijacked by some local leaders through various political/social and cultural means merely to neutralize the influence of the mandatory provisions of reservations in order to suit their political interests and to retain their control over the local polity and resources, without effecting the provisions of reservation.

By the time Senate subcommittee hearings on the "population crisis" ended in 1968, a sizeable consensus had begun to emerge favoring government support of voluntary family planning programs at home and abroad. The goal to develop a national family planning program was easier to set than to accomplish, however, and there have been no lack of difficult questions to haggle over in the past 20 years. Beginning with the Johnson administration, the executive branch of government has tended to favor block-grant funding of family planning services, while Congress has insisted on categorical funding. Conflict has also existed over financial eligibility for government-supported services, over whether teenagers and unmarried women should be served in publicly supported clinics and over which services should be included in the definition of family planning. The Reagan administration has exacerbated the conflicts with attempts to redefine family planning by placing primary emphasis on natural methods and abstinence for those who wish to prevent pregnancy and attempts to deny funding to both domestic and foreign programs that support access to abortion. While future government support for family planning programs does not seem seriously threatened, funding has not grown in 15 years, once the effects of inflation are taken into account, and most programs have had to limit eligibility to survive. The Bush administration is unlikely to be as confrontational as the Reagan administration on the subject of family planning, but the political reality is that conflict can be expected to continue.

One of the most important stories in Latin American studies today is the emergence of left-leaning social movements sweeping across Latin America includes the mobilization of militant indigenous politics. Formed in 1995 in Ecuador to advance the interests of a variety of people's organizations and to serve as an alternative to the country's traditional political parties, Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement (Pachakutik) is an indigenist-based movement and political party. In this critical work, Kenneth J. Mijeski and Scott H. Beck evaluate the successes and failures experienced by Ecuador's Indians in their quest to transform the state into a participative democracy that would address the needs of the country's long-ignored and impoverished majority, both indigenous and nonindigenous. Using a powerful statistical technique and in-depth interviews with political activists, the authors show that the political election game failed to advance the cause of either Ecuador's poor majority or the movement's own indigenous base. Pachakutik and the Rise and Decline of the Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement is an extraordinarily valuable case study that examines the birth, development, and in this case, waning of Ecuador's indigenous movement. The mobilization of militant indigenous politics is one of the most important stories in Latin American studies today. In this critical work, Kenneth J. Mijeski and Scott H. Beck examine the rise and decline of Ecuador's leading indigenous party, Pachakutik, as it tried to transform the state into a participative democracy. Using in-depth interviews with political activists, as well as a powerful statistical analysis of election results, the authors show that the political election game failed to advance the causes of Ecuador's poor or the movement's own indigenous supporters. Pachakutik and the Rise and Decline of the Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement is an extraordinarily valuable case study of Ecuador's indigenous movement and the challenges it still faces.

The health planning legislation of 1974, establishing HSAs, represented an important attempt to break recurring patterns of decision making in public choices. One widely heralded strategy for controlling contemporary medical care--consumer involvement through accountability, representation, and participation--is flawed by failure to recognize that political markets are always imbalanced because of unequal interests and disproportionate resources. How can we represent broad, diffuse interests when all the incentives point to domination by a minority of intensely interested producers? Solutions favored at the local level may not best serve the entire nation; they cannot mirror the full spectrum of constituencies. Adjustment of mechanisms both internal to HSAs and external to them are suggested--yet, even so, their mandate reaches beyond possibility of accomplishment.

Background This study delves into the impact of supporterism on voluntary political engagement in post-revolution Tunisia, particularly focusing on its potential for educating youth in participatory democracy. The study centres on the dynamics within the ultras supporters of the Tunisian football team “Club Africain” (CA), exploring their role in shaping political attitudes and actions. Also, this research highlights the significant role of supporterism in shaping political attitudes and actions among Tunisian youth. It emphasizes the need for further exploration of the influence of supporterism on political engagement in diverse political contexts with varied supporter profiles. Methods Ultimately, supporterism emerges as a persuasive tool for fostering understanding and engagement in participatory democracy, particularly among the youth. Therefore, 20 Club Africain ultras were interviewed semi-structured about their political engagement experiences. Interviews sought to understand the collective and individual opinions of Tunisians on democratic autonomy. The documentary analysis also showed the political engagement of young Tunisians and their determination to defend the country against fraudulent democratic processes. Results The investigation shows that supporterism and politics interact dynamically, demonstrating their resilience against political opportunism. However, some interviewees (7/20) contemplated immigration and terrorism as potential solutions despite their undeniable support for a secular state, rejecting extremist Islamic ideologies. These thoughts are rooted in experiences of discrimination and marginalization, shaping their perceptions and aspirations for the future. The results highlight supporterism as a dynamic space fostering autonomy in the political participation of young Tunisians. Conclusion Supporters demonstrate a self-motivated commitment to democratic values and equitable socio-economic development, advocating for transparent governance. Their engagement in politics through supporterism underscores the potential for positive and evolving interactions between sports and political activism.

Is an Endless Meeting offers vivid portraits of American experiments in participatory democracy throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on meticulous research and more than one hundred interviews with activists, Francesca Polletta challenges the conventional wisdom that participatory democracy is worthy in purpose but unworkable in practice. Instead, she shows that social movements have often used bottom-up decision making as a powerful tool for political change. Polletta traces the history of democracy in early labor struggles and pre-World War II pacifism, in the civil rights, new left, and women's liberation movements of the sixties and seventies, and in today's faith-based organizing and anti-corporate globalization campaigns. the process, she uncovers neglected sources of democratic inspiration-Depression-era labor educators and Mississippi voting registration workers, among them-as well as practical strategies of social protest. But Is an Endless Meeting also highlights the obstacles that arise when activists model their democracies after familiar nonpolitical relationships such as friendship, tutelage, and religious fellowship. Doing so has brought into their deliberations the trust, respect, and caring typical of those relationships. But it has also fostered values that run counter to democracy, such as exclusivity and an aversion to rules, and these have been the fault lines around which participatory democracies have often splintered. Indeed, Polletta attributes the fragility of the form less to its basic inefficiency or inequity than to the gaps between activists' democratic commitments and the cultural models on which they have depended to enact those commitments. The challenge, she concludes, is to forge new kinds of democratic relationships, ones that balance trust with accountability, respect with openness to disagreement, and caring with inclusiveness. For anyone concerned about the prospects for democracy in America, Is an Endless Meeting will offer abundant historical, theoretical, and practical insights. is an excellent study of activist politics in the United States over the past century. . . . Assiduously researched, impressively informed by a great number of thoughtful interviews with key members of American social movements, and deeply engaged with its subject matter, the book is likely to become a key text in the study of grass-roots democracy in America.-Kate Fullbrook, Literary Supplement Polletta's portrayal challenges the common assumption that morality and strategy are incompatible, that those who aim at winning must compromise principle while those who insist on morality are destined to be ineffective. . . . Rather than dwell on trying to explain the decline of 60s movements, Polletta shows how participatory democracy has become the guiding framework for many of today's activists.-Richard Flacks, Los Angeles Times Book Review In Freedom Is an Endless Meeting, Francesca Polletta has produced a remarkable work of historical sociology. . . . She provides the fullest theoretical work of historical sociology. . . . She provides the fullest theoretical picture of participatory democracy, rich with nuance, ambiguity, and irony, that this reviewer has yet seen. . . . This wise book should be studied closely by both academics and by social change activists.-Stewart Burns, Journal of American History

In the late 1990s, after the transition from dictatorship to electoral democracy in Latin America, the left began to win elections, or became the major challenger against right-wing governments—setting off a massive and relatively long-term wave of democratically-elected left leaders. This article, in focusing on the left of this political continuum, aims to explore the nature of democracy in the context of its resur-gence in Latin America, specifically attempting to understand whether and how the new left as a political actor can move beyond an electoral democracy, toward a deepening of democratic institutions. After dis-cussing the societal and political transformations that led to the left’s resurgence in Latin America, the article moves into an elaboration of its conceptualization of the left, addressing both the radical participa-tory and the social democratic left in relation to their fundamental views on democracy and the economy. Subsequently, the article turns toward a historical discussion of past leftist governments—both radical and more social-democratic cases—which in turn points to structural constraints that, at least historically, have hindered the accomplishment of radical participatory democracy in Latin America. The question that this article conclusively attempts to address is what implications this might have for democratic stability, when Latin America is once more facing the reality of democratically-elected, but radical left leaders. One conclusion is that the new tendencies of the left in Latin America can be said to have followed two distinct paths in the democratic consolidation era. One is the reformist, social-democratic left, which sup-ports the development of liberal democracy and neoliberal economy therewith complies with the political, social, and economic order of the day. In contrast, the radical left would like to develop a participatory democracy with socio-economic reforms that may potentially challenge societies’ major actors. Like simi-lar cases before them, the development of democracy in today’s Latin America is inevitably influenced by these paths, and is simultaneously constrained and deepened. Another conclusion is that democracy is deepended in both these routes. It is deepened in a liberal democracy, because it means more civil and political right for the people and a more well-functioning democracy, in relation too just free and fair elec-tions as in an elite democratic system, in which the competion to win elections is the main thing. It is deepened in a participatory democracy, because it means more possibility for people to actively participate in political decions-making on a local grassroots-level and on issues related to daily-life socio-economic issues. But it is also constrained because radical left reforms is challenging the elite actors - radical left governments might eventually bring about a downfall of democracy. Furthermore, it is constrained through the reformist, social democratic platform, because social reforms that the people may want are not instilled because they do not comply with the elite’s interests (as in the case of Chile in the 1990s). In this case, it means to maintain elite democracy and neoliberal policies democracy, without challenging the interest of the elite. A final conclusion is that changes in democratic models within transitioning countries potentially necessi-tate support from the dominant elite actors. Radical political and economic changes that took place in historical Chile and Guatemala were challenged by the same kind of actors as in today’s Venezuela, Bo-livia, Ecuador and Nicaragua—namely, the economic elite, the military, external (mainly U.S.) forces and the parliamentary right. With the historical record countries such as Chile and Guatemala, the main ques-tion might not be if radical cases such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador will meet the same destiny; rather it could just to be a matter of time when it will happen in, at least, one of these cases.

This article draws on the political philosophy of John Dewey as one way to re-think the relationship between deliberative and participatory democracy. Rather than focusing on differences, Dewey's ideal of democracy allows us to bridge these two theories while still being attentive to the tensions between them. In particular, Dewey helps us conceptualize deliberative and participatory practices as distinctive yet complementary phases within a larger circuit of cooperative inquiry. To illustrate the argument, a case study of one democratic experiment that effectively combined different forms of practice is presented. In doing so, it is contended that we might be able to recover and incorporate some of the more radical features of participatory democracy into deliberative practices. Participatory theory's focus on political action and structural inequality, in addition to deliberation, as essential to citizen-centered democratic practice is specifically emphasized.