Answer to Question #189468 in Political Science for Lindelwa

Question

Explain in your own words, what you think public participation in a democracy means. In your answer, you should mention representative and participatory democracy.

Answer 1

Public participation in a democracy refers to the process in which government involves citizens in public affairs by getting their views in the decision-making process. The government through their local leaders' schedule days to have public gatherings and listen to the citizens' views and document them to aid in the decision-making of their affairs and by doing so they make citizens hold the government accountable for any project they undertake. Public participation can be done in two ways either through participatory democracy or representative democracy. In participatory democracy involves people being laid into decision-making and offers greater political representation that is wider control of proxies given to representatives by those who get directly involved and participate. In a representative democracy, it involves people voting for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives on their behalf. Representative democracy is regarded as the old system of public participation.