BACK TO PARTICIPATION: PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL REPRESENTATION IN THE CONTEMPORARY DEBATE

Abstract The article discusses the deflation of the participatory democracy ideal in the political science of recent decades. While the 1960's and 1970's original formulations indicated the need to increase opportunities for collective democratic management in the everyday life, particularly in the workplace, the models in the following decades accept the circumscription of democratic practices to the State. At the same time, the criticism to representative institutions and to the political passivity they promote has been set aside in favor of a perception in that the difference between participation and representation is practically annulled. Thus, the radicalism of participationist criticism to liberal democracies is lost.