Introduction

Promoting participation in decision making is seen as a cure against many problems of policy making in modern societies, with the expectation that participation would ensure better quality of decisions, and close the gap between politicians and citizens. However, shortcomings in participatory processes have also been identified, such as the relation between decision making outside and within the political structure as a result of the formal electoral system. There is furthermore a middle-class bias in decision-making processes, which has led to the (in)voluntary exclusion of groups such as single mothers/parents, minority ethnic groups and the less educated in general.

The introduction of a faith dimension complicates the picture of participation even further. On the one hand, if faith-based organisations (FBOs) are close to the population (especially those groups who are excluded), then they improve their chances of participation. On the other hand, particular value systems may sometimes lead to the exclusion of certain groups from participating in FBOs, and strong cohesion within groups may lead to a closing off of people vis-à-vis society at large. In this chapter we present evidence from our fieldwork on FBOs in Belgium and Sweden to address these issues.

In this chapter we look at the participation of FBOs in larger networks, but also touch on the participation of members and clients in those organisations. Indeed, the power and/or authority of any organisation also depends on the characteristics of its clientele and on the different forms of capital that members – professionals as well as volunteers – bring with them into the organisation. We start with the almost classic statement that different degrees of participation exist, and not necessarily in the form of a ‘ladder of participation’, meaning that they are to be ranked hierarchically (Arnstein, 1969). While participation may have a horizontal as well as a vertical dimension, the ‘steps’ of the ladder are relevant to identify different forms of participation.

We begin looking at what FBOs are and why their participation is a relevant problem in present society and welfare states. One of the principles guiding this chapter is that we use concepts such as faith-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), FBO or NGO (some of which are faith-based) more or less interchangeably. We are interested in the position and role of FBOs in the current context of more horizontal power relations and an increased interconnectedness of different governmental and non-governmental actors.