Participation and political ideologies: how and why they matter?

Most of the research about democratic innovations has neglected the analysis of the role played by ideological preferences in their development. Do different political ideologies develop more/less or different participatory processes? Our starting point is the assumption that different views on the core values of democracy lead to different positions concerning the role and expected benefits of citizen participation. The paper presents a state of the art about the subject and develops a set of hypotheses regarding three specific questions. First, in case ideology matters, which is the crucial ideological difference? Is this a matter or right versus left or is there a particular type of left parties that have been specially active in the development of democratic innovations? With this goal in mind, we present the normative views on democratic participation within each party family (new left, social democracy, greens, liberals, populists, conservatives). Second, in case any difference exists, why? Is this related to normative preferences of political elites, to strategic calculations or to different pressures from their social supporters? Third, do differences (if any) translate in more/less activity or in different types of participatory processes? The paper will present the theoretical framework, the methodology of the comparative project and preliminary empirical evidences based on data from the Spanish case in 2009.