PARTICIPATORY democracy is a new buzzword in the development circles that is fast gaining popularity.
Upon hearing it for the first time, however, my initial reaction was that it sounded like an oxymoron, thinking that in the first place, democracy is supposed to be participatory.
On second thought however, I realized that sometimes, under certain conditions, democracy could actually be exclusionary and worst than that, it could even be discriminatory.
I realized further that even if democracy is supposed to give equal rights to everyone regardless of economic standing, which is not always the case, because some people who are more economically advantaged would then to have preferential treatment over those who are not.
In past articles, I wrote about inclusive growth as being a misnomer, wherein I argued that the proper term should be inclusive development, based on my contention that growth could not be planned and only development could be planned.
Regardless of whether you would agree with me or not, what is more important is to recognize that inclusive growth or inclusive development being the economic side should be directly correlated with participatory democracy, being the political side. Given the reality of social discrimination, it could safely be said that with more economic inclusion, there could be more political participation.
In its pure form, an election in a democratic country could already be considered as an exercise in participatory democracy. In its corrupted form however, the meaning is lost because of vote buying and because of command voting, two anomalies that are definitely economically driven.
Because of the dominance of the corrupted form, we are often caught in abnormal situations wherein the poor people are excluded from democratic participation by the same politicians whom they voted for, but not out of their own free will, or shall we say, not out of their own intelligent choices. Despite these grim realities however, there is still hope for democracy to prosper, if only the laws pertaining to citizen participation would be followed.
From the local level all the way up to the national level, there are many provisions in the laws for citizens to participate in the democratic process of governance.
As it is defined, governance is a process that should involve not only those who govern, but also those who are governed. As it is usually interpreted, the citizens (those who are governed) are represented by the civil society, being the aggregate term for all Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Socio-Civic Organizations (SCOs) and People’s Organizations (PO). In the past, the term “civil society” has suffered from negative publicity, but we have no choice but to cleanse its public image. (To be continued)/PN
