We explain what participation is in the political, social, financial and class spheres. Also, what is participatory democracy.
What is participation?
With the word participation we can refer to many different things in many different areas. Its origin dates back to the Latin term participatioderived from the verb I will participatein turn composed of the voices pars (“part”) and capere (“take” or “grasp”). Therefore, in its current meanings, this word is always related to the fact of integrate a collective, join a group or take part in something.
In fact, if we look for the word participate In the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, we will notice how its first four meanings refer to similar situations: an individual joins a community, or is assigned a portion of a collective patrimony. That is why when talking about participation, we generally refer to social, economic and political issues, in which the relationship between the individual and the community appears.
Political participation
Political participation is the area in which the relationship between the individual and the collective is most evident: is the exercise of politics by citizens in general that is, the set of actions that the people can carry out directly or indirectly to influence the political decisions made by their representatives, and thus take part in important decisions for their own well-being.
Political participation is fundamental to the health of any government system, and It is put into practice through different conventional mechanisms, the main of which is suffrage: elections, referendums and/or plebiscites through which the population exercises its opinion on issues of political representation and administrative decisions.
There are, however, other forms of political participation, such as open town hall meetings or popular initiatives, in which citizens assume the reins of political leadership much more directly and openly.
Participatory democracy
It makes sense to address, having said the above, participatory democracy, which consists of a more inclusive and direct democratic model than traditional representative democracy in which the people elect those who will govern on their behalf.
In participatory democracy (as its name reflects) the margins of political participation of the group are much greater, although without reaching the standards of direct democracy, in which it is the citizens themselves, without the need for intermediaries, who exercise leadership. policy.
Thus, in a participatory democracy the aim is to create an institutional model closer to the people, in which community supervision and the different mechanisms of popular consultation force politics to focus on people's real problems and thus not disconnect from real basic needs.
Social or citizen participation
When we talk about social participation or citizen participation, on the other hand, we refer to the set of social initiatives in which the population can take part, without the need to have a political career and without the intervention of State institutions, or at least not directly.
It is a more or less broad concept, which includes political parties, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social movements and even local groups, such as neighborhood associations or neighborhood development societies. In these spaces the community is organized to be able to actively defend their interests both against private actors and against the State itself.
Participation in finance
In the financial and economic sphere, we speak of participation to refer to a form of investment in which funds are added to the capital of the company personally and without acquiring obligations regarding personal assets (in case of debt or bankruptcy). This form of investment is different from buying shares.
On the other hand, this term is also used to refer to the amount of money that each participant grants to an investment fund, with the hope of seeing their money multiplied in the future.
Class participation
Participation in class is one of the aspects of school evaluation that are usually left to the teacher's judgment, that is, they depend on their reading of the student's attitude within the class. This evaluates both the presence (obviously), and the willingness to actively take part in learning, to do the activities and, in general, to integrate into the group that makes up the classroom.
Participation in class can be evaluated with different percentages and scores within the total evaluation of the subject, depending above all on whether they are more practical or theoretical subjects.
Continue with: Inclusion
References
- “Participation (disambiguation)” in Wikipedia.
- “Political participation” in Wikipedia.
- “Participatory democracy” on Wikipedia.
- “Participation” in the Language Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- “Social participation” at Freie Universität Berlin (Germany).
- “Citizen participation in public management” in ECLAC-United Nations.
- “Participation” in Economipedia.
