English
Język Polski
Does Democratic System Need Participation? On the Role of Direct Democracy, in Polish Constitution and Democratic Theory
Leszek Porębski
Abstract
Research objective: The aim of the paper is the analysis of the impact of political participation on democratic system. The reference plane of the analysis is direct democracy (including its forms comprised in Polish constitution), in that its limits and drawbacks.
The research problem and methods: The research problem is considering the issue: Is any type of participation strengthening democratic system? The overall impact of participation on democracy according to contemporary theories of democracy is also taken into account in the analysis.
The process of argumentation: Majority of theories of democracy assume that intensive participation results in better performance of political system. The practice of direct democracy proves however that citizens’ decisions are very often based on erroneous premises. The competence of citizens who participate in democratic procedures is thus not less important than the level of participation. According to research results, both characteristics (quantity and quality of participation) are however divergent.
Research results: Contemporary democracy faces the difficult choice. We can opt for lower level of participation, thus securing more competent political decisions but at the same time accepting the absence of many social groups in the process of interests’ articulation. The other choice is the stimulation of high participation level, which implies the acceptance for the growing susceptibility for populism as well as the danger that irrational political options gain legitimacy. This dilemma seems to a great extent unresolvable.
Conclusions, Innovations and Recommendations: The Stimulation of participation should be preceded by previous activity aimed at the increase of political knowledge of citizens as well as the forming of civic attitudes.
Keywords
direct democracy ; political participation ; democratic system ; theory of democracy
Details
References
Indicators
Authors
Zasady cytowania
Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a CC BY-ND licence that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are asked to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). We advise to use any of the following reserach society portals: