From Representation to Participation:Participatory Democracy beyond Representative Democracy
Representative democracy has always been regarded as the most desirable form of de-mocracy in the contemporary West.In the early 1960s,the shortcomings of representative democracy were gradually exposed when there were massive social protests and political apathy in Western socie-ties.The theory of participatory democracy,based on the rejection of certain ideas of representative democracy,emphasising the direct participation of citizens,expanding the forms and areas of demo-cratic participation and thus going beyond representative democracy.However,participatory democracy did not completely replace the important position of representative democracy,and gradu-ally declined in the 1980s.Consultative democracy further develops the theory of participatory democ-racy,increasing the feasibility of democratic participation and focusing on issues of social complexity,thus posing a stronger challenge to representative democracy.At the same time,Western democratic theory is still unable to propose effective solutions to the problems of populism and political polarisati-on in Western societies.This also shows that the essence of the problems of democratic politics in Western countries does not lie in the form,but has its own deeper political and cultural reasons,and that it is difficult to meet the requirements of democratic political development by merely adjusting the form of democratic participation.
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