Democratizing representative democracy: A review on the participatory democracy model

Democracy is a notion that has found application in different ways in administrations for many years, but at the same time has been discussed about how it should be applied throughout history and new ideas have been constantly put forward about it. Democracy, which in its purest form means "self-government of the people", is considered to be a form of governance inherited from the direct democracy model practiced in Ancient Greece to the present day. But, the model of democracy inherited from Ancient Greece has become unenforceable in today's conditions and has undergone structural changes, replacing it with representative democracy. The representative democracy model, which has emerged as an inevitable new form of democratic decision-making processes of modern societies, has preserved this function for long years. However, the developments that have occurred in the modern period have created newer, more complex discussions and conflicts. At this point, it has been suggested that the principles and institutions of representative democracy are insufficient to respond to the new debates and conflicts that have occurred, and that the confidence in the principle of representation applied in decision-making processes has decreased. In the literature, this situation is expressed to as the "representative democracy crisis" and has been frequently raised and discussed recently. At the point of solving this crisis, it is shown that citizens should participate more actively in decision-making processes, and it is thought that the tools and practices of participatory democracy can be used in this regard. This work is a theoretical, qualitative, descriptive study and inculudes the predicaments of the representative democracy model and the analysis of the participatory democracy model put forward as a solution proposal. In this context, it is aimed to present the applications and solution proposals of the participatory democracy model aimed at alleviating these crises by evaluating the emerging crises in a cause-effect relationship. In the solution proposals put forward, it is seen that although the representative democracy model provides important solutions to the crises it is in, there are still aspects that are open to further development.