ABSTRACT
This book started from the diagnosis that in modern societies the sphere of governance extends far beyond a state-or government-centred vision of policymaking. Against this background it is argued that it has to be asked how this extension of policy-making into society can be used to expand democratic selfdetermination rather than to see it as a limitation to democracy. More precisely, it has been argued that it is a political task to turn the inevitability of governance into a participatory form. To assess the democratic quality of participatory governance, the following elements have been defined and taken into account:
• its openness and accessibility • the quality of deliberation taking place within it • its effectiveness (meaning actually achieving the objectives determined by
collective decisions) • links to the public sphere • the making and enforcement of rules for these governance arrangements
through direct or indirect democratic decisions taken by those who are affected by policy outputs emerging from the governance arrangements.
