An examination of the practices of participatory democracy at the supranational level as a solution to the crisis of representative democracy: The case of the European Union

Democracy has emerged in different forms in the historical process and has been applied in different ways by different societies. Democracy, which has a dynamic structure, has undergone various transformations and changes in this process. The model of direct democracy in Ancient Greece, which is accepted as the pure and ideal type of democracy, has transformed into a representative form by undergoing structural changes with the emergence of nation-states in the modern era. The modern model of representative democracy has been the default decision-making mechanism of nation-states characterized by increasing populations and expanding geographies. It has been the main way of determining the decisions that individuals, who have different perceptions of good life, world views, and interests, make to determine the rules of coexistence and to find political solutions to social problems. The model of representative democracy denotes that decisions are taken through representatives elected by the people and that the representatives act in the interests of the people after they are elected. However, some developments in the modern age, technological advances, globalization, and multiculturalism have brought new and complex areas of discussion and conflicts challenging the dominant position of representative democracy in the modern era. In this sense, it is claimed that the principles and institutions of representative democracy have failed to respond to these new challenges; confidence in the institutions and decision-making mechanisms of representative democracy has decreased and intense dissatisfaction with representative democracy has begun to occur. These problematic aspects of representative democracy have been called "the crisis of representative democracy" and have recently been highly debated both in the scholarly literature and in practice. Besides, participatory democracy, which enables citizens to participate more (directly) in decision-making processes, has been indicated by many critics as the most significant and valuable theoretical, normative and practical alternative model to solve the aforementioned crisis. The crisis of representative democracy has also been discussed not only referring to the nation-states but also the supranational states especially focusing on the model of representative democracy implemented in the European Union (EU). In this context, this study aims to examine and discuss the model of representative democracy and its crisis at both the nation-state and the EU levels. Methodologically, this thesis is a qualitative and descriptive study in theoretical and analytical political science/philosophy. Thus, this study examines and evaluates the effectiveness of the practices of participatory democracy implemented by the EU to alleviate the "democracy deficit" and to strengthen its democratic legitimacy from a theoretical perspective. If accepted that representative democracy is in a crisis, the main argument raised in this study is that the practices of participatory democracy implemented at the EU level have the potential to eliminate the democratic deficit, but there is still room for improvement. Keywords: Representative Democracy, Crisis of Representative Democracy, European Union, Democratic Deficit, Participatory Democracy