Rising Participation and Declining Democracy
Rising Participation and Declining Democracy
This book explores how public participation fosters severe structural inequalities that limit the potential for true democratization. It examines the implications of new participatory innovations for the exercise of authority and governance as well as the practices that sustain and undermine democracy. It considers the institutional interests in public legitimation through participation and the highly unequal context in which elite-facilitated civic innovations, known as the “new public participation,” have taken root. It also looks at how participatory democratic practices (or those that invoke this tradition) have evolved from their origins in civil society organizations to a diverse set of institutional homes and how this transition shapes participatory dynamics. This introductory chapter places participation in a historical context and discusses how participation might produce and sustain inequality. It also provides an overview of the chapters contained in this book.
Keywords: public participation, democratization, authority, governance, democracy, civic innovations, new public participation, civil society, inequality
NYU Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.