One important point about participatory democracy is to make sure that the institutions really empower the citizens. Often “participatory democracy” is just a political move made by the local authorities to attract votes, a communication move that only serves to legitimate decisions that already have been taken by the authorities. To ensure real participation and decision making power to citizens, the cooperative has created the Intervention Charter. Local authorities committing to the charter are put in front of the people and held to account. The idea is that it is the people who are the experts. But implementing such a practice encounters several difficulties: the fear of the local authorities to be directly confronted by their citizens, and the difficulty of convincing both citizens and experts that ordinary citizens know what is good for their community. Low participation of citizens can also be a problem sometimes. It is not easy to mobilize people to participate nowadays. [My emphasis]I see a danger in this presentation of participatory democracy. One must never forget that capitalist ruling classes will never voluntarily relinquish control over important decisions. The fact that they permit local experiments such as depicted in this presentation does not in any way refute this point. You see, under globalized capitalism, local decisions matter very little to capitalist ruling classes. Most tax money is spent by national governments that are controlled by these ruling classes, and local communities have lost most of the important decisions. Consider how corporations can elicit all kinds of subsidies and favors from local communities so that corporations will set up operations in their communities. This lack of power over important decisions is clearly the reason why there is "low participation of citizens...."
However, I believe that such participation is desirable in that it offers a training experience for people to prepare them for self-government.
