Abstract

Participatory practices are prominent strategies for increasing the legitimacy and effectiveness of resource commons governance. Despite increases in participatory practices legitimacy of such governance is in decline. Remaining commons are sites of conflict echoing wider disillusionment in democratic governance across mature liberal democracies. Much participatory governance literature argues that more involvement of citizens in deliberation and decision-making is the solution, turning away from representative practices to strengthen direct participation in commons governance. In this paper we draw on seminal work in political representation theory to examine legitimacy and political agency in participatory governance practices. We develop a conceptual lens drawing on key elements of: Hannah Pitkin’s The Concept of Representation; Michael Saward’s Representative Claim; and, Vivan Schmidt’s throughput model of legitimacy. The lens comprises three ‘conditions’ for analyzing how political agency of participants is constituted through institutional processes: authorization, dissent and exit, and accountability. We argue that this conceptual lens can serve the participatory turn in commons governance by enabling explicit consideration of the links between political participation and representation as foundations of democratic legitimacy.

摘要

参与式实践是提高资源公地治理的合法性和有效性的重要策略。尽管参与性实践有所增加，但此类治理的合法性正在下降。剩余的公地是冲突的场所，反映了成熟自由民主国家对民主治理的更广泛幻灭。许多参与式治理文献认为，让公民更多地参与审议和决策是解决方案，从代表性实践转向加强对公地治理的直接参与。在本文中，我们利用政治代表理论的开创性工作来检验参与式治理实践中的合法性和政治能动性。我们开发了一个基于以下关键元素的概念镜头： Hannah Pitkin 的 The Concept of Representation；迈克尔·萨沃德的代表索赔；以及 Vivan Schmidt 的合法性吞吐量模型。该镜头包括三个“条件”，用于分析参与者的政治能动性是如何通过制度过程构成的：授权、异议和退出以及问责制。我们认为，通过明确考虑政治参与和代表之间的联系作为民主合法性的基础，这个概念镜头可以服务于公地治理的参与性转向。