Lorenzo Córdova Vianello

Political representation and citizen participation are two essential components for the operation of a democracy. A democratic regime’s good performance cannot be conceived without the participation of the citizenry in public affairs, as without a mechanism that facilitates both the conformation of power in a representative manner and the aggregation and processing of demands from different groups that are a part of society.

Many times, however, political representation and citizen participation in public decision making are taken as synonyms when, in reality, they are different concepts. This is due to the fact that even though citizen participation for the election of representative bodies is essential for democracies, citizen participation in public affairs tends to be limited to the election of public representatives, when the vote is only one of many mechanisms for citizen intervention in government decisions.

By confusing both terms and regarding them as synonyms, Rousseau’s famous conclusion can be easily reached in the sense that in a representative democracy, the people are sovereign only when choosing representatives and, as soon as they are chosen, the people return to a slave state. This statement overlooks the fact that in a democratic regime, citizen participation is not circumscribed only to the act of voting, but it comprehends those activities through which citizens influence public decision making and, thus, the control over their government’s actions.

This point is even more relevant nowadays. Little over half a century ago, only a few questioned the importance of political representation for the operation of a democratic regime, for the aggregation of diverse interests that existed in society was realized mainly by political parties, labor unions and other interest groups. However, in the last years we have been witnesses of the emergence of serious questions about the suitability of the representative regime, together with the emergence of groups with specific interests and demands, preoccupied in affecting the development of governmental policies in specific subjects, but without the goal of obtaining power and without direct links with traditional politic actors.

The emergence of these new political identities –often inspired in direct democracy- sets a new challenge for representative democracy. Indeed, new forms of politic organization and participation test the capabilities of governments worldwide to process their demands without replacing representation mechanisms and the role of traditional political actors in this process.

For this reason, the knowledge of new forms of political participation and the analysis of its consequences for contemporary democracies is now a necessity for those who are involved in the academia, political activities, or the design and application of public policy. In this sense, the 26 essays contained in Mecanismos de Participación Ciudadana: Una Experiencia Global, constitute a contribution of great utility for the compared study of citizen participation in democracies. As the reader will note in the following pages, the type and number of reviewed cases, as well as the coincidences among the considered variables, allow the identification of common features and divergences in the ways that different countries have approached the effects of the new modalities of citizen action.

Undoubtedly, one of the great merits of this book is the achievement of a compared perspective to approach the subject of citizen participation. The comparative method not only allows the explanation, comprehension and contrasting of a common political phenomenon in different places through an organized and systematic analysis of its similarities or differences, but it also helps to avoid biases in its comprehension caused by ethnocentric prejudices. This last argument is of particular relevance in an issue such as this one, which effects can be observed locally, nationally and even internationally due to the ever faster and more intense exchange of ideas, practices, and experiences concerning this subject.

For all of the above, the effort made by the Instituto Electoral del Estado de Querétaro (Electoral Institute of the State of Queretaro) with Tirant lo Blanch to make this book available for specialists and the general public is to be applauded; this book looks to provoke a serious reflection on the practices and results of policies designed to promote citizen participation not only in the electoral field but in other fields of public life.