Participatory democracy has become an imperative of our time, the subject of countless international conferences and policy reforms. It is at the centreof contemporary political theory. In this work we want to focus on the problemfrom another perspective, neither its normative justifications nor the effects of its practice; we want to see how lay citizens represent participatory democracy and its limits. Supported by a qualitative research based on focus-groups conducted in Southern Europe, we analyse the discoursesof participatory democracy shared by different social groups.We identify the limits and problems that lay citizens put to their direct participation in political processes. The perception of conflict in the community, the representation of the society as political actor,and the visions of politics limit the scope for direct participation according to the discourses of lay citizens.
