It is easy to dismiss the concept of participatory democracy as naive and Utopian. But it is
impossible to ignore the fact that there is a very great need to bring people out of isolation and
into community. It is a serious indictment of the shortcomings of the American democracy as
the best Governmental system in the world and as an institutional system that in recent years
more than 35% of the eligible voters did not participate48. Various disabilities account for a part
of this non-involvement not only in the US but in several other representative democracies.
The upsurge of interest in participatory governance demonstrates how the interpretation of
democracy as a system of government has transformed over the centuries. This, of course, is not
surprising. As various thinkers make new contributions, changes in the institutional expressions
will continually occur. What is more surprising, however, is that from the ancient Greece until
now there has been little alterations in the perception of the guidelines which democracy should
use in its decision making process and the normative values which it should try to realize.
Democracy is a very old concept, but its meaning has always been complex. T