The display of ancestral human remains in museums is a contentious ethical issue, raising concerns around the dignity and respect for ancestral lived lives versus the role of remains for education and scientific enquiry. Against the backdrop of recent debates sparked by the deinstallation of ancestral remains at several museums (e.g., the removal of the Shuar tsantsas at the Pitt Rivers Museum) and revisions of national and international ethics codes, this essay explores the role of two methodologies – a trial and interactive workshop – in producing inclusive spaces to support ethical decision making and practice. Digital participation technologies were used to support an accessible mode of participation that was anonymous – allowing attendees to express opinions about emotive and challenging subjects, such as ancestral human remains. For both examples, attendees and participants identified key priority and action areas for the sector and within their places of work. The activities will contribute to a wider research project that is investigating value and ethical disagreements and polarization within museums.

The expansion of democratic innovations has always been analysed from the point of view of the quality of the instruments, as well as their internal functioning. In this paper, using as an example the expansion of democratic innovations in Spain, we propose to understand this process from the sociological concept of ‘field’. Thus, we will be able to analyse the changes that have taken place in this new field of institutional participation. The results give us relevant information about the existing conflicts, as well as necessary keys to understand the crisis of some instruments or the arrival of new ones.

The Carnation Revolution in Portugal marked the transition from a dictatorial regime to democracy in the mid-1970s. As military and social forces took centre stage in the ‘Revolutionary Ongoing Process’, the establishment of a Western liberal democracy was accompanied by the country’s participation in a new international context. In parallel, growing citizen disaffection towards political institutions has become apparent, with attempts to expand democracy through multiple practices over the past two decades. Recognising the need to systematise knowledge on democratic innovations through a genetic approach, this paper critically discusses exemplary practices associated with emerging patterns of participation across three main historical stages. The main argument of this paper is that a situated understanding of democratic innovations allows us to view them as ‘children of their time’ that have contributed differently to the inclusionary character of Portuguese democracy, while demonstrating the capacity to incorporate lessons from the past.

This article demonstrates that Evelyn Underhill’s 1920s shift from voluntarist mysticism to christocentric participation reflects a modern Anglican retrieval of Augustine’s doctrine of grace. Drawing on her books, letters, and revisions to Mysticism, it argues that wartime disillusionment and Friedrich von Hügel’s guidance reoriented her from Neoplatonic aspiration toward divine initiative, ecclesial emphasis and christological mediation. Underhill emerges as a constructive theologian of grace whose mature outlook challenges accounts that centre religious progress in human effort, insisting instead on God’s prior action and the mediating work of Christ.

Representative democracy gives voters the right to influence who governs but its influence on policy making is only indirect. Free and fair referendums give voters the right to decide a policy directly. Elected representatives usually oppose referendums as redundant at best and as undermining their authority at worst. Democratic theorists tend to take electing representatives as normal and as normatively superior. The nominal association of popular decision making and populism has strengthened this negative view. Public opinion surveys show substantial support for holding referendums on important issues. Two major theories offer contrasting explanations for popular support for referendums; they reflect populist values or a commitment to the civic value of participation. This innovative paper tests an integrated model of both theories by the empirical analysis of a 17‐country European survey. There is substantial support for all three civic hypotheses: referendum endorsement is positively influenced by attitudes towards participation, democratic ideals and whether elected representatives are perceived as responsive. By contrast, there is no support for populist hypotheses that the socioeconomically weak and excluded favour referendums and minimal support for the effect of extreme ideologies. The conclusion shows that most criticisms of referendums also apply to policy making by elected representatives. While referendums have limits on their use, there is a democratic argument for holding such ballots on major issues to see whether or not a majority of voters endorse the choice of their nominal representatives.

What happens to the proposals generated by participatory processes? One of the key aspects of participatory processes that has been the subject of rare systematic analysis and comparison is the fate of their outputs: their policy proposals. Which specific factors explain whether these proposals are accepted, rejected or transformed by public authorities? In this article contextual and proposal‐related factors are identified that are likely to affect the prospect of proposals being implemented. The explanatory power of these factors are tested through multilevel analysis on a diverse set of 571 policy proposals. The findings offer evidence that both contextual and proposal‐related variables are important. The design of participatory processes affects the degree of implementation, with participatory budgeting and higher quality processes being particularly effective. Most significant for explaining outcomes are proposal‐level, economic and political factors: a proposal's cost, the extent to which it challenges existing policy and the degree of support it has within the municipality all strongly affect the chance of implementation.

The economic crisis that started in 2008 has negatively affected European nations to different degrees. The sudden rise in demonstrations particularly in those countries most hard hit by the crisis suggests that grievance theories, dismissed in favour of resource‐based models since the 1970s, might have a role to play in explaining protest behaviour. While most previous studies have tested these theories at the individual or contextual levels, it is likely that mechanisms at both levels are interrelated. To fill this lacuna, this article examines the ways in which individual‐level grievances interact with macro‐level factors to impact on protest behaviour. In particular, it examines whether the impact of individual subjective feelings of deprivation is conditional on contextual macroeconomic and policy factors. It is found that while individual‐level relative deprivation has a direct effect on the propensity to have protested in the last year, this effect is greater under certain macroeconomic and political conditions. Both significant results for the cross‐level interactions are interpreted in terms of their role for opening up political opportunities for protest among those who feel they have been most deprived in the current crisis. These findings suggest that the interaction of the contextual and individual levels should continue to be explored in future studies in order to further clarify the mechanisms underlying protest behaviour.

The income gradient in political participation is a widely accepted stylized fact. Based on nine panel datasets from six countries, this research note asks whether income changes trigger short‐term effects on political involvement. Irrespective of indicator, specification, and method (hybrid random effects models, fixed effects models with lags and leads, and error correction models), there are few significant short‐term effects of income changes. In conjunction with earlier research, this finding suggests that the income gradient in political participation is likely to reflect stable differences between rich and poor voters emerging early in the life course.

Across established democracies, citizens express high levels of support for decision making via referendums. What drives these preferences remains yet unclear. In this article it is argued that, first, process preferences are less stable than previously assumed but vary substantially across policy proposals. Second, it is suggested that instrumental considerations play an important role in shaping citizens’ preferences for referendums. Specifically, citizens who favour the policy proposal or believe that they hold a majority opinion are expected to express more support for the use of referendums. An original survey was designed and conducted in the Netherlands (N = 1,289) that contains both between and within respondent variation across a range of policy proposals. The findings support these arguments: Both the desire for a specific policy change and the perception of being in the majority with one's policy preference relate to support for the use of referendums across policy proposals, levels of governance, and between and within respondents. This study contributes to a better understanding of process preferences by showing that these preferences have a non‐stable component and that instrumental considerations play an important role in citizens’ support for referendums.

In the context of an ever growing importance and usage of referendums around the globe, this article provides a comprehensive approach to analyse the determinants of participation in direct democratic votes. In the absence of conclusive empirical evidence about which factors drive direct democratic participation, studies tend to adopt election-specific findings and assume the determinants of electoral turnout to equally apply for referendums. Yet, a strict empirical test of these numerous determinants in a referendum context is still missing. By examining aspects stemming from both election-specific and referendum-specific contexts, this article aims to first test the applicability of common electoral theories of turnout for direct democratic participation and second to analyse the relevance of each factor when simultaneously examined with other contextual and individual factors. This holistic approach represents reality as adequate as possible, that is, to consider various factors that may simultaneously influence the individual decision to vote. Next to individual variables, the analysis particularly focuses on two contextual levels, the community a person lives in and factors linked to a given referendum. The discussion and joint analysis of competing factors addresses the problem of underspecified turnout models, which commonly prevents a detailed assessment of the relative importance of the determinants of turnout. The study uses registered data from the canton of Geneva, Switzerland, which provides official information about individual participation across 43 referendums in 45 communities. We match this individual data with referendum-related factors, such as campaign intensity and importance of the issues at stake, and community-level variables, such as wealth and urbanization. The results of our multilevel, cross-classified models show significant context-related effects, stemming mainly from the referendum and less from the community level. Still, the main driver of direct democratic participation is individual determinants, in particular citizens' past participation record.

This critical commentary engages Jeff Jackson’s reading of John Dewey’s approach to participatory democracy and direct action—both are fundamental issues in democratic theory today. I probe Dewey’s texts for what I reason to be a more precise reading of his views on social movement action. I go beyond Jackson’s assertion of a role for direct action, to theorize it as an intrinsic element of participatory democracy.

Scholars frame local participation as a continuum of tools, processes, and values, with outcomes primarily serving implementers or beneficiaries. Donors have adopted participation in their policies and are asking local partners in the Global South to implement participation in their work on the ground. Development management practitioners in the Global South have unique understanding and practice of local participation. This article analyzes the status of local participation in Lebanon using recent empirical data. We address Lebanese DM practitioners’ perceptions of participation. They relate that participation is used in a limited way, as a tool at best. We also identify some of the underlying conditions: weak readiness and understanding; lack of coordinated efforts; and rhetorical use of the participation paradigm. The form of participation changes as these conditions change. We recommend modest expectations of citizen participation, investing efforts to develop organizational readiness, enhance cross-sector coordination, and secure more serious donor engagement.

As participatory governance approaches to local development get adopted also in transition countries, one of the key questions is how participation actually impacts local governance outcomes. This study examines the link between non-electoral participation and different public goods outcomes in rural Ukraine along with identifying the role of community-based organizations (CBOs). Using a unique survey data from Ukraine, I approach these questions empirically explicitly distinguishing between different public goods outcomes. I find that participation appears to be positively associated with local school and water supply outcomes. In addition, CBOs are found to be associated with better quality of water supply systems motivating a discussion about establishment of service cooperatives for water supply as a functional local governance arrangement.

This article makes three key contributions to debates surrounding the effectiveness of democratic innovation, deliberation and participation in representative political systems. In the first instance, it argues that more attention should be paid to the role that participation actually plays in governance. The literature on democratic institutional design often neglects concern about the effects of innovative institutional designs on more traditional representative fora, at the expense of concerns about their internal procedures. Second, the article argues that despite limitations, replicable systematic comparison of the effects of institutional design is both necessary and possible even at the level of national governance. A comparative analysis of 31 cases of National Public Policy Conferences (NPPCs) in Brazil is presented. Finally, the article shows that popular deliberative assemblies that vary in their familiarity and their policy area of interest, and that organise their structure and sequence deliberation in different ways can be associated with differential effects on both option analysis and option selection stages of the policy process, respectively.

‘Service user involvement’ is a widespread and well-known phenomenon within welfare policy and practice in Western countries and is usually perceived as a way of improving welfare services to better aid service users in managing their predicaments. However, the presented ethnographical study of service user involvement within a Swedish psychiatry organization shows that user involvement initiatives might also result in unintended and undesired effects on the collective user movement (i.e. the service user organizations involved in the activities). The analysis suggests that initiatives on user involvement might affect both the constitution of the user movement as well as the way the movement operates. Theoretically co-optation theory informs the analysis.