Participatory Democracy

Abstract Participatory democracy is a generic – and perhaps the original – form of democracy in the western world. It can be compared and contrasted with representative democracy as well as with forms expressed by correlative terms such as direct, deliberative, and strong democracy. Because democracy originated in small towns, principalities, city‐states, and rural republics, it was a form of small‐scale self‐government that was predicated on a mono‐cultural community, ethnically and religiously uniform, where differences were minor and consensus well developed.