In this contribution, we warn against being too optimistic about the actual democratic effects of notions like ‘‘civil media”, ‘‘community media” ‘‘alternative media”, ‘‘grassroots media”, ‘‘participatory media”, or ‘‘participatory culture”. We argue that in contemporary society, which is characterized by structural inequalities, an understanding of alternative media as participatory media is i...

Neighborhood-representing organizations (NROs) are generally viewed as the most authentic form of citizen participation and local democracy. In this article, I question how democratic NROs actually are, both on the local level (participatory democracy) and in the external arena (representative democracy). I present a new conceptual model of the components of democracy in neighborhood organizati...

The past decade has witnessed an emergent form of activism increasingly defined by its reliance on internet strategies, network social structures and participatory practices. Internet strategies employed by many contemporary activists include websites, listservs and hyperlinked networks used for exchanging information, mobilizing both old and new constituencies, and coordinating collective acti...

How does civic education affect the development of democratic political culture in new democracies? Using a unique threewave panel data set from Kenya spanning the transitional democratic election of 2002, we posit a two-step process of the social transmission of democratic knowledge, norms, and values. Civic education first affected the knowledge, values, and participatory inclinations of indi...

across Eastern Europe, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa, scholars have begun to explore how democratic changes affect women. Like other analyses of gender and the state (Brush 2003; Eisenstein 1988; MacKinnon 1989; Orloff 1996; Pateman 1988), these studies examine how states create and govern gender relations among their citizens through institutions, laws, and legal discourses (Jaquette a...

Th e past two decades have seen a proliferation of largeand small-scale experiments in participatory governance. Th is article takes stock of claims about the potential of citizen participation to advance three values of democratic governance: eff ectiveness, legitimacy, and social justice. Increasing constraints on the public sector in many societies, combined with increasing demand for indivi...

Democratic and participatory evaluation raises questions of power. Power lies not only in agenda setting and problem definition but also in formulating alternatives. The latter seems to have been forgotten in the literature on democratic evaluation. This may be partly due to the general neglect of assessing alternatives in evaluations, whether ex ante or ex post. The article distinguishes diffe...

The interplay of mass and elite opinion raises theoretical issues about democratic rule, as well as practical issues surrounding the proper formation and implementation of public policy. Many argue that mass opinion is the product of largely unreflective judgments. When complex or technical issues are at stake, such as those involved in the reform of America’s health care system, popular input ...

Abstract Democratic theorists have long emphasized the importance of participatory equality, that is, all citizens should an equal right to participate. It is still unclear, however, whether ordinary view this principle as central democracy and how different violations affect subjective democratic legitimacy. The attitudes are imperative when it comes legitimacy systems, therefore important exa...