Write three points on social movements affecting the public participation in democracy
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Answer:
Although political participation is a major issue in the research on both social movements and public participation, until today these two fields remain largely unconnected. This introductory article aims to bring these fields together, exploring the linkages and differences between studies on public participation and social movements, by focusing on the term “political participation” and its varying meanings and implications. As a result of globalization, the study of political participation in both social movement and public participation studies has been confronted with a range of new questions. Therefore, of particular interest to our focus on political participation of civil society are questions about implicit and explicit references to democracy and participation, as well as the shaping and making of transnational public's. Thus, based on a systematic literature review of recent developments in these fields, this article compares how these new questions are dealt with in studies on social movements and public participation.
Introduction
Transnational civil society participation is a theme that has grown in importance in recent decades and has been discussed with regard to its influence and desirability. An accurate diagnosis of the challenges of transnational civil society participation has to acknowledge the lack of enforcement of political decisions, and thus a lack of effective democracy, at the global level1 but also the empirical fact of increasing (and new and changing forms of) transnational political civil society participation—including that offered by states, but also that of actors challenging state authorities. Such transnational engagement practices forming transnational publics in the making entail diverse imaginaries of democracy and participation, and shape how we understand and think of the potentials, benefits and limits of transnational political participation.2
At the national level, civil society participation is an important factor in the functioning of modern democracies. However, while democracy has spread across the world,3 the quality of democracy is still low in a majority of countries if we consider factors like participation or the public sphere. Representative democracy constantly faces threats and contestation.4 These difficulties democracies face at the national level become even more complicated if we focus on decision-making processes at a global level—taking into account the fact that there are neither shared understandings about the role, relevance and forms nor agreed-upon regulations for participatory and democratic transnational modes of governance.
We therefore suggest taking a closer look at the implications of globalisation for civil society participation and taking these as empirical phenomena to be studied in their own right. We argue in favour of the relevance of bringing together insights from research areas: research on public participation5 and social movement studies.6 Both deal with global civil society participation that includes translocal, transregional or transnational phenomena. In both areas, experimentation with democratic innovations can be observed. This takes the form of accumulations of individual and often isolated events, initiatives and movements of citizens' and civil society organisations. As such, forms of transnational political participation—linked to various policy issues changing and shaping the landscape of global governance—become a research object in their own right. The focus on global phenomena has gained considerably in importance in both of the research areas that we bring together in this special issue project.
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