Framing Democracy: Participation and Representation by Activists and Politicians

Abstract

Recent political theory has placed much emphasis on the ideas of inclusion, deliberation and participation as answers to the problems of existing democracies (e.g. Fraser 1992; Benhabib 1996; Young 1996; 2000; Rosanvallon 2006, 2008). These ideas seem to trickle widely, in various forms, into legislation and policy (Bacqué et al. 2005; Sintomer 2007; Blondiaux 2008). In both France and Finland, different participation practices and procedures have recently been introduced as remedies to the problems of representative democracy. Evaluations of practical endeavors to enhance civic involvement in decision-making indicate that citizens draw contradictory experiences from them, some empowering, but some nurturing the distrust between citizens and representative democracy (e.g. Niemi-Iilahti 1999; Carrel 2003, 2006; Rui 2004; Koebel 2006; Leino 2006; Talpin 2006; Bäcklund et al. 2006; Bäcklund 2007; see also Chapter 1 in this book). In this chapter, I put in parallel the ideas springing from current democracy theorizing with the ideas the local political actors put forward when they talked about democracy. The focus is on the perceptions and definitions of democracy of, first, the counter-democratic actors met in the previous chapters, and, secondly, the local politicians and administrators that held different positions of political power in Lyon and Helsinki.

An earlier version of the analysis in this chapter has been published in Luhtakallio, E. 2010. ‘Perceptions of Democracy in Helsinki and Lyon.’ In Stenius, Henrik & Alapuro, Risto (eds) Nordic Associations in a Comparative Perspective. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 281–306.