Can Local Participation Disrupt Neoliberalism? The Politics and Ethics of Caring for Democracy

What difference can local participation make in a world where inequality increases everywhere, where segregation pulls communities apart and where policymakers marginalise the needs and interests of the people whose lives their decisions affect the most? This question was central two decades ago when research on participatory institutions took off. Leftist scholars described participatory budgeting, in particular, as a rebellion against neoliberal capitalism, and liberal democracy scholars proclaimed enthusiastically that this new invention would refuel citizens’ energies and solve democracy’s crisis (eg, Harvey 2012; Fung 2004). Not all these proclamations were grounded in careful analysis of the constraints and obstacles of local politics. But while some scholars were idealistic about what small spaces democratic activism could achieve, critics seemed to dismiss it all too easily. They claimed that participatory practices were too soft, too small and too submissive to make any real difference. Few of them seemed to consider that these spaces might offer something distinct from protests or party politics, something valuable, even disruptive, in its own right.