Participatory democrats want more participation, in all aspects of politics (and sometimes in
spaces beyond the political sphere, such as workplaces and universities), from all citizens
who choose to be involved. They believe this is the essence of democracy—the only way to
ensure that the ‘people rule’ is for them to be involved in making the decisions that affect
them. Instead of specifying a preferred type of political participation, they embrace and
encourage a diversity of opportunities for political engagement.
In contrast, deliberative democrats have a specific view on the type of political participation
they want citizens to be involved in: deliberation. Deliberation requires that participants: (a)
become well informed about the topic, (b) consider different perspectives, in order to (c)
arrive at a public judgement (not opinion) about "what can we strongly agree on?" They
consider this to be a superior form of political participation as it leads to more informed and
rounded public opinion, and, arguably, better decisions.
Participatory and deliberative democrats therefore also favour different types of institutions
and practices to promote these alternative approaches to political participation. For
example, many participatory democrats see value in instruments of direct democracy which
is exemplified by referenda or citizens’ initiatives [LINK Swiss model]. It can be further
exemplified by participatory budgeting which spread throughout South America, starting
with Brazil in 1988 (Wampler & Hartz-Karp 2012) and is now spreading worldwide.
Participatory budgets were designed to widen participation for lower socio-economic
groups, by allowing them an opportunity to make decisions about a small proportion of a
city’s spending. newDemocracy has experimented with deliberative, participatory budgets
involving a small number (35-43) randomly-selected participants and a city’s entire 10-year
budget (See, City of Melbourne).
Selection method
Participatory democrats usually favor self-selected participation, in order to enable as many
people as possible to share the experience. This enables easy recruitment, can be less
expensive, and is seen as equitable. Deliberative democrats tend to favor random selection,
in order to assemble a public body that is: representative of the public; able to consider
perspectives; and not be vulnerable to being stacked by representatives of powerful interest
groups.
Many deliberative democrats believe that there is a trade-off between large numbers of
participants and the quality of deliberation. Consequently, a strand of deliberative
democracy wants to involve relatively small (but representative) groups of people in
considerable depth. To achieve this, a civic lottery is used (See, Sample size). Deliberative
democracy has found widespread, practical expression through randomly-selected citizens’
juries (See, Benefits of the jury model), citizens’ assemblies (See, Integrating Citizen
Deliberation—Ireland) and methods which have come to be known generically as mini-
publics although deliberative possibilities exceed these methods (See, Forms of mini-
publics).
Large numbers versus high quality deliberation
Participatory processes that prioritise large numbers, such as participatory budgets, certainly
can involve more people than would usually be the case within a representative system of
government. This gives opportunities to those who have traditionally been silenced or left
unheard. An online or postal survey would be a form of participatory democracy as would an
extensive system of public meetings or a mobilisation of people in a public square. These