Citizen Participation and Democratic Deficits: Considerations from the Perspective of Democratic Theory (forthcoming in Activating the Citizen.

Are there political problems faced by the developed democracies to which more citizen participation is the answer?1 From the perspective of democratic theory, the answer is clear and long-standing. Governments should be responsive to citizens as a consequence of citizen participation, through elections, pressure, public deliberation, petitioning, or other conduits. For these forms of participation to function democratically, all affected by the decisions of a government should have the opportunity to influence those decisions, in proportion to their stake in the outcome. From a normative perspective, governments are in democratic deficit when political arrangements fail the expectation that participation should elicit government responsiveness. From an empirical perspective, governments are in democratic deficit when their citizens come to believe that they cannot use their participatory opportunities and resources to achieve responsiveness. From a functional perspective, governments are in democratic deficit when they are unable to generate the legitimacy from democratic sources they need to govern. My aim in this chapter is to clarify the question of democratic deficits as the