Participatory and Deliberative Democracy in the Global South: trends, challenges, contributions, and open questions

Participatory and deliberative democracy is said to be global in reach (Curato, Sass et al 2020), though the extent to which public reference to the field effectively mirrors the ambitions of practitioners and experts remains contentious (c.f. Smith & Setälä 2018). The field is historically rooted in practices and learnings from the Global South: foundational studies focused, for instance, on Kerala's gram sabhas (e.g. Heller et al 2007) and Brazil's Participatory Budgeting. More recent developments, however, appear focused almost exclusively on institutional designs embedded in the Global North, particularly in the form of (sorted) Citizens' Assemblies. This development has serious consequences for research and praxis (c.f. Bherer et al, 2017), for funding and grassroots governance efforts (c.f. Openjuru et al 2015) and risks reproducing extractivist and neocolonial structures (Morán and Ross 2021; Curato, Morán and Almeida, forthcoming). Moreover, the 'import' and 'export' of institutional designs across world regions carries myriad of problems in terms of standardizing research and evaluation about P&DD processes (e.g. Zaremberg and Welp 2021). Are democratic innovations in the Global North and Global South drifting apart? Is there a distinct Global South perspective in the field of P&DD? What are the specific challenges to less privileged regions in the world, and (how) do they condition the emergence, spread, and implementation of P&DD processes? To approach these questions, this survey article presents a comprehensive analysis of the evolving landscape, contextual challenges, and original contributions of participatory and deliberative democracy in the Global South. It does so by critically examining trends in the field and comparing them with trends and findings in five regions in the Global South. I draw on original evidence generated between 2021 and 2023. The data encompasses 30 in-depth landscaping interviews with international P&DD experts and practitioners. I identify five relevant dimensions to understand the specificity of P&DD in the Global South: topics covered by participatory and deliberative democracy processes, mandate and source of legitimacy, preferred formats and institutional design, planned and/or actual impact, and incentives to implement these processes. General trends are identified for the Global North and the Global South, respectively, along each of these dimensions in order to draw parallels and divergencies. The paper further discusses what challenges are specific to P&DD initiatives (and their study) in the Global South, what responses have been developed to tackle those challenges, and to what extent they can contribute to global debates in the field. It concludes listing open issues that can grow the research agenda on concepts and practices of P&DD.