Contexts of Participation: Why do Democratic Innovations Fail or Succeed?

In a theoretical endeavour we seek to conceptualize participation in a comprehensive way, taking into account various contextual factors that can influence the outcome of participation. This broader conceptualization of participation does not only focus on the conduct of democratic innovations as such, but also on the contextual factors that accompany participatory experiments. Such contextual factors can be joint preparations of participatory experiments, the development of relationships between citizens, the (non-)existence of trust between participants and organizers, the attitudes of involved actors and the way group processes are developing on a micro-level. This contextualized approach broadens the focus on relationship aspects of participatory processes and is based on recent literature on the role of the affective components of democracy such as empathy, recognition and passion (Krause 2008, Morrell 2010, Dobson 2014) We try to systematize the effect of participation on the quality of democracy in relation to these contextual factors. We want to broaden the analytical perspective of participation, namely from looking at single formats of democratic innovations such as deliberative polling or participatory budgeting for example, to looking more broadly on the processes that start much earlier and end much later than the actual formats. Thus, we ask: Under which contextual factors are democratic innovations successful? Why do participatory experiments enhance the self-efficacy of citizens? In sum, this theoretical paper contributes to the debate about the effects of participation referring to more recent literature on emotions and democracy. This can shed light on the mechanisms of participation that foster the improvement of democratic quality. Dobson, Andrew (2014): Listening for Democracy. Recognition, Representation, Reconciliation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krause, Sharon R. (2008): Civil Passions. Moral Sentiment and Democratic Deliberation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Morrell, Michael E. (2010): Empathy and Democracy: Feeling, Thinking and Deliberation. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University.