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Participatory Engineering: Can Democratic Reform Increase Political Participation?
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PARTICIPATORY ENGINEERING: CAN DEMOCRATIC REFORM
INCREASE POLITICAL PARTICIATION
1
Thomas Zittel
University of Mannheim
Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung (MZES)
Postfach
68131 Mannheim, Germany
Phone: +49 621 181-2815
E-mail:
thomas.## email not listed ##
http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/
Impressionistic evidence suggests that political elites in many established democracies perceive their system of government in a state of crisis. The rhetoric of elected officials stresses downward trends in electoral participation and organizational membership to argue that citizens are turning their back on democracy. As a reaction to this observation, they consider measures and policies to positively affect political participation via institutional reform. In this paper, I define these activities as participatory engineering. Liberal democratic theory, as well as theories of political participation, paints a sceptical picture regarding the effectiveness of participatory engineering. Its proponents point to the preoccupation of individuals with private concerns and to individual capacities largely defined by socio-economic factors as major determinants of political engagement. This paper turns to theories of participatory democracy for an alternative view and to systematically discuss the effectiveness of participatory engineering from a theoretical perspective. My assumption is that any theoretical argument in support of the effectiveness of participatory engineering has to be specific regarding the institutions that are assumed to have a positive impact on participation and regarding the mechanisms that is assumed to link the institutional and behavioural levels of politics. With this argument in mind, the paper synthesizes the diverse body of literature attached to the concept of participatory democracy. It distinguishes between three strategies of participatory engineering that emphasize different linkage mechanisms related to different institutional options for democratic reform. I label these strategies as expansive democratization, integrative democratization and efficiency-oriented democratization. The paper furthermore discusses questions for further theoretical and empirical inquiry that emerge from this taxonomy.
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Prepared for delivery at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
Washington, D.C., 31. August – 4. September; The paper is work in progress; comments are welcome, please do not quote without the author’s permission.
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PARTICIPATORY ENGINEERING: CAN DEMOCRATIC REFORM
INCREASE POLITICAL PARTICIATION
1
Thomas Zittel
University of Mannheim
Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung (MZES)
Postfach
68131 Mannheim, Germany
Phone: +49 621 181-2815
E-mail:
thomas.## email not listed ##
http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/
Impressionistic evidence suggests that political elites in many established
democracies perceive their system of government in a state of crisis. The rhetoric of
elected officials stresses downward trends in electoral participation and organizational
membership to argue that citizens are turning their back on democracy. As a reaction
to this observation, they consider measures and policies to positively affect political
participation via institutional reform. In this paper, I define these activities as
participatory engineering.
Liberal democratic theory, as well as theories of political participation, paints a
sceptical picture regarding the effectiveness of participatory engineering. Its
proponents point to the preoccupation of individuals with private concerns and to
individual capacities largely defined by socio-economic factors as major determinants
of political engagement. This paper turns to theories of participatory democracy for an
alternative view and to systematically discuss the effectiveness of participatory
engineering from a theoretical perspective.
My assumption is that any theoretical argument in support of the effectiveness of
participatory engineering has to be specific regarding the institutions that are assumed
to have a positive impact on participation and regarding the mechanisms that is
assumed to link the institutional and behavioural levels of politics. With this argument
in mind, the paper synthesizes the diverse body of literature attached to the concept of
participatory democracy. It distinguishes between three strategies of participatory
engineering that emphasize different linkage mechanisms related to different
institutional options for democratic reform. I label these strategies as expansive
democratization, integrative democratization and efficiency-oriented democratization.
The paper furthermore discusses questions for further theoretical and empirical
inquiry that emerge from this taxonomy.
1
Prepared for delivery at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
Washington, D.C., 31. August – 4. September; The paper is work in progress; comments are
welcome, please do not quote without the author’s permission.
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