Democracy: Participatory vs Representational

[freediver]

It means you need a parliament.

[Aussie]

It means you need a parliament.

A 'parliament' hey. With real 'sitting MPs' in it or just computer terminals to act as these 'delegates?'

[Rorschach]

Participatory democracy has a long history. One instance is the Haudenosaunee confederacy (also known as the Iroquois confederacy) which operates under the oldest surviving constitution in the world. It is a common practice of non-civilized peoples and tribal nations.
In 8th and 7th century Ancient Greece, the informal distributed power structure of the villages and minor towns began to be displaced with collectives of Oligarchs seizing power as the villages and towns coalesced into city states. This caused much hardship and discontent among the common people, with many having to sell their land due to debts, and even suffer from debt slavery. At around 600BC the Athenian leader Solon initiated some reforms to limit the power of Oligarchs and re-establish a partial form of participatory democracy with some decisions taken by a poplar assembly composed of all free male citizens. About a century later, Solon's reforms were further enhanced for even more direct involvement of regular citizens by Cleisthenes. Athenian democracy came to an end in 322BC.
When democracy was revived as a political system about 2000 years later, decisions were made by representatives rather than by the people themselves. A minor exception to this was the limited form of direct democracy which flourished in the Swiss Cantons from the later Middle Ages. In the late 19th century a small number of thinkers including Oscar Wilde and Emma Goldman began advocating for increased participatory democracy. It was in the 20th century that practical implementations of participatory democracy once again began to take place, albeit mostly on a small scale, attracting considerable academic attention from the 1980s.

In the 1980s, the profile of participatory democracy within academia was raised by James S. Fishkin, the professor who introduced the deliberative poll. Experiments in forms of participatory democracy that took place within a wider framework of representative democracy began in cities around the world, with an early adopter being Brazil's Porto Alegre. A World Bank study found that participatory democracy in these cities seemed to result in considerable improvement in the quality of life for residents.

Political variants of participatory democracy include:

* Anticipatory democracy
* Consensus democracy
* Deliberative democracy
* Demarchy
* Direct democracy
* Grassroots democracy
* Non-partisan democracy
* Sociocracy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_democracy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[freediver]

Great, you swallowed a dictionary.

[Rorschach]

I was expecting something like that.
I was also hoping it wouldn't come... but... let me tell you my prepared answer for such a comment.

I'm just trying to bring others up to speed. To my level of understanding if you like. Not everyone, including myself, are up to speed on everything.

If I post information, it is just because I am trying to bring people up to speed on the topic...

[Aussie]

I was expecting something like that.
I was also hoping it wouldn't come... but... let me tell you my prepared answer for such a comment.

I'm just trying to bring others up to speed. To my level of understanding if you like. Not everyone, including myself, are up to speed on everything.

If I post information, it is just because I am trying to bring people up to speed on the topic...

It is, of course, beyond your comprehension or even contemplation that others are already 'up to speed,' and more than likely in every case, well beyond your 'level of understanding,' and even if they aren't, they too know how to google.

[freediver]

Very generous of you. What do you think of voting by delegable proxy?

[Rorschach]

I was expecting something like that.
I was also hoping it wouldn't come... but... let me tell you my prepared answer for such a comment.

I'm just trying to bring others up to speed. To my level of understanding if you like. Not everyone, including myself, are up to speed on everything.

If I post information, it is just because I am trying to bring people up to speed on the topic...

It is, of course, beyond your comprehension or even contemplation that others are already 'up to speed,' and more than likely in every case, well beyond your 'level of understanding,' and even if they aren't, they too know how to google.

sigh.... I was expecting this from you... you fail to disappoint.

I expect quite a few to be up to speed perhaps not those asking certain questions though.

[Rorschach]

Very generous of you. What do you think of voting by delegable proxy?

not at all...

Would you care to explain how it differs from representative democracy, where an elected member represents the wishes of an electorate or state?

[freediver]

Sure. Under representative democracy, bills need support from over 50% of sitting MPs to pass. Under a delegable proxy system, they need support from 50% of the population. They could theoretically pass with only one MP in support. In this regard the system is much closer to direct democracy. It probably ticks all the boxes from the definition you gave.