Participation and Power

This attempt at a definition of the contours of the thematic put forward by the IRG is in itself subject to debate and will be progressively refined through future activities on the subject.

The notion of participation can be broadly defined as an approach within which various ‘interested parties’ are actively engaged in the formulation of decisions. This concept, today at the very centre of reflection on governance, appears to be very widely used in definitions of public policy or development projects in national and international institutions.

Without portending to resolve the ambiguity of such a notion, the IRG is undertaking to give this term the broadest framework possible and to work with our partners on many areas of further reflection: the question of different types of participation in political power (representative or participative democracy, electoral problematics, formal or real democracy etc.) from a local to a global level. This question initiates the need to question the definition and the redefinition of the social contract and how the paths of various communities are traced in relation to their participation in the system. The problematic of ‘participation’ thus puts into question the existence and the place of non-state actors in the public sphere, as well as their direct or indirect influence on institutions. The issue of the concept of ‘participation’ is thus at issue as to whether it takes into account the emergence of a multi-actor and polycentric governance. The latter issue is in fact at the heart of every individual political culture, the question of the existence of an autonomous ‘society’ vis-à-vis the state but also that of the potential for society’s misuse.