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 movements, including radical pacifism, the civil rights movement, the New Left, feminism, environmentalism, antinuclear activism, gay and lesbian movements, and the global justice movement. Participatory democratic organizations today claim a diverse lineage, with precursors in ancient Athenian democracy, the New England town hall, Quaker meetings, and Spanish civil war affinity groups. The term itself was popularized in 1962 by the New Left group, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). SDS activists took the term from philosopher Arnold Kaufman to refer to a polity in which citizens were regularly involved in public policymaking. They intended the term to describe a political system, not a mode of organizational decision making. However, at the time, decision making within SDS itself was collectivist and consensus oriented, this despite the group’s formal reliance on parliamentary procedure. The same was true of the militant civil rights group, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). For thousands of activists in the New Left, antiwar, and radical feminist movements, participatory democracy soon became an organizational ethos (Ferree & Martin 1995; Polletta 2002). By the end of the decade, many young activists perceived the political system