Participatory Democracy in an Age of Inequality

Participatory democracy in social movements

Participatory democracy refers to an organizational form in which decision making is decentralized, nonhierarchical, and consensus oriented. It can be contrasted with bureaucracy, in which decision making is centralized, hierarchical, and based on a formal division of labor, as well as with majority vote. Participatory democratic organizations have been a prominent feature of many progressive m...

Democracy and Income Inequality: an Empirical Analysis

While standard political economy theories suggest a moderating effect of democratization on income inequality, empirical literature has failed to uncover any such robust relationship. Here we take yet another look at this issue arguing first, that prevailing ideology may be an important determinant of inequality and, second, that the democratization effect “works through” ideology. In societies...

Inclusive Democracy and Participatory Economics

Although Michael Albert is well aware of the existence of the Inclusive Democracy (ID) project, still, in his new book Parecon, Life After Capitalism he prefers to ignore its existence and follows the trouble-free path to compare Parecon with the disastrous central planning system and the narrowly ecological bio-regionalism, (or, elsewhere, with social ecology’s libertarian municipalism, which,...

When Does Participatory Democracy Deepen the Quality of Democracy?

Inequality , Growth , and Democracy

1 4 5 Inter-American Development Bank. Facing Up to Inequality in Latin America. Washington, D.C.: Distributed by the Johns Hopkins University Press for the Inter-American Development Bank, 1998,204 pp. Dani Rodrik. The New Global Economy and Developing Countries: Making Openness Work. Washington, D.C.: Overseas Development Council, 1999,168 pp. Vito Tanzi and Ke-young Chu, eds. Income Distribu...