သီအိုရီ

Participatory democracy

A General Assembly meeting at the Occupy Wall Street protests, New York City, September 26, 2011.

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အတိုချုံးပြောရရင်

Unlike representative democracy, which is often a tame affair of choosing between the lesser of two evils, participatory democracy involves masses of people directly transforming their lives and society.

American political scientists teach that participatory democracy is the province of the distant past, a relic of ancient Greece or New England town meetings, but Asian uprisings at the end of the twentieth century provide contemporary proof of its existence. Modern forms of participatory democracy embody humanity returning to our natural inclinations for equality and consensus. Social uprisings since 1968 involve activated democracy, not a passive and much-abused representative system of choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They remind us that human beings remain capable of changing the planetary structures that condemn millions of people to living hell at the periphery of the world system — and involve all of us in continual wars and destruction of the planet.

— George Katsiaficas, Asia's Unknown Uprisings.

Participatory democracy is a system that facilitates the active involvement of individuals in all important decisions and institutions affecting their lives. In contrast to traditional representative democracy, which prescribes a relatively limited set of roles for individuals in political life (e.g. voting, writing to politicians), participatory democracy embraces social movements and other forms of collective action as vital forms of political change. Participatory democracy does not confine itself to the formal political realm, instead calling for broad inclusion in all of society’s institutions, including families, schools, businesses, and the media. Rather than being a static system, participatory democracy is a constant process of contention and transformation.