This paper explores the way in which democratic innovations can challenge the notions of the people, and introduce new normative frameworks for democratic theory. It compares and contrasts the liberal democratic and populist understanding of the people, drawing from Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's theory in the ethos of immanent critique.
The paper explores the process in which participation and representation took place in a case in the Finnish capital Helsinki, where the author has engaged in action research 2012-2017. The citizen-led participatory planning and co-goveranance models in Maunula shows how the people was not understood as the audience or clients, or the popular movement counterpart – but co-creators of activity alongside municipal departments in a new cultural centre. Instead of a consultation there was mutual engagement. At the same time, the case showed how difficult it is – for the officials, media, researchers to take the people as the people, given the usual compartmentalising logic.
The paper proposes that there are possibilities for "the people" to emerge as an impossible, temporary and necessary collective subject. Nevertheless, this representation would always have to be something more diverse and beyond then one self or one's interest. An emphatic relation. Something beyond oneself: as one plus.
