The limits and merits of participation

The goal of economic development is to increase growth and eliminate poverty. Recently, the goal has been broadened to include promoting participatory governance. Arguably, participation, for example, in community water committees, produces two desirable outcomes: democratic processes and better-targeted, more efficiently delivered public services. Participation is desirable as an end in itself, as a means of sharing resources, control, and responsibility within the social group. Yet participation is not always related to democracy. Fascism was a participatory, grassroots political movement. Participation is as much a problem as it is a solution, as much a goal as a tool. It is a problem when it is disorderly and if it is assumed to be a substitute for democratic representation. It is a solution when it changes conflict into negotiated losses. Participation can make development assistance more effective, but it works best for groups that are already participatory; for groups that can already help themselves. The recent literature on the effectiveness of foreign aid to developing countries presents an interesting analogy. Most foreign aid is useless. The only part that really helps development is that which follows rather than precedes policy change. Similarly, participation seems to work well only when the institutions of participation are in place before the need they address arises and when the institutions are compatible with the need s objectives. These conditions are not easily met. Discussions of participation cannot ignore issues of political power, local power, populism, and representation. They cannot ignore issues of moral pluralism (the verity of ways in which people value their lives) or cultural diversity. They cannot dismiss the ways in which people can be blocked from better lives by the beliefs of their cultures. They cannot avoid the pressure that a dominant group may exert to forgesolutions that are morally unacceptable. These problems are not irrelevant or unimportant. Efforts to promote participation would seem strikingly banal were the history of development efforts not replete with failures to achieve participation where it would have made a difference. It has typically been assumed that people, especially poor people, lack the competence to decide for themselves. Similarly, the failures of participation would seem strikingly banal if people, especfially those we are interested in, behaved the way we expected them to. But people do not behave as expected. Their interests may not be in the collective interest, and thier goals may not coincide with broader social goals.