What are the strengths and weaknesses of current approaches to democracy? What challenges exist in efforts to promote “deeper” democracy? This working paper from the Institute of Development Studies surveys current debates about democracy, covering four main strands: “civil society” democracy, participatory democracy, deliberative democracy and empowered participatory governance. It argues that democracy is an ongoing process of contestation, rather than a set of standardised institutional designs: approaches to democracy should combine a range of democratic models.
The spread of democracy internationally has been accompanied by growth in the “democratic deficit”. Democratic reforms in Latin America have failed to counteract rising inequality, while external donors’ demands in some African states have led to “exclusionary democracies”, less responsive to citizens’ voices.
The neoliberal approach to governance weakens state power through privatisation and decentralisation; the liberal representative model emphasises democratic institutions and processes, but not participatory governance. The “deepening democracy” perspective focuses on building participatory mechanisms beyond elections or institutional design, aiming to strengthen the state and widen citizen engagement.
The “deepening democracy” debate is split into four broad approaches:
- Democracy can be built by strengthening civil society organisations (CSOs) as a check on government action through its mobilising, advocacy and monitoring activities. However, this approach can impose standardised, rather than context-specific, institutional change and questionably assumes CSOs’ autonomy from government, as well as the state’s receptivity to CSOs.
- Participatory governance – enabling citizens to engage with governance processes within the state – provides more direct popular access to policymaking. However, such “co-governance” might be susceptible to abuse and “elite capture”, as well as relying on a naïve view of power dynamics.
- Deliberative democracy emphasises the quality of deliberation in public participation, aiming to shift democratic governance from bargaining and power play to shared reasoning among equal citizens. Critics assert that this approach misunderstands how people deliberate across cultures; underestimates the value of countervailing power and makes inappropriate assumptions about societies’ public spaces.
- Empowered participatory governance (EPG) is based on bottom-up participation, careful deliberation of pragmatic issues and institutional design aiming for devolution alongside strong central supervision. Problems identified with EPG include its potential for allowing elite capture, rent-seeking practices and limits imposed by external actors; as well as its failure to grapple with power politics.
Many successes in deepening democracy have occurred in countries with strong states and CSOs: the challenge is to develop democracy in countries without these characteristics. Legitimacy, inclusion and equality should be targeted by democratisation strategies which combine the strengths of various approaches in a context-specific way:
- Further analysis of power relations and the ways in which participatory approaches interact with representational institutions should take place to enable greater CSO engagement in politics.
- Actor-oriented research into democracy-building should be combined with work on human rights to ensure democratisation engages with debates about citizenship and gender or ethnic diversity.
- As participatory governance includes elements of representation, new forms of legitimacy and accountability, beyond elections, should be investigated.
- Increasing citizens’ oversight over economic policies and corporate activities affecting their lives could help reduce inequality.
- Enhancing local and national participation should be linked with work on CSO engagement and democratic governance at the global level.
