ABSTRACT
An UNRISD discussion paper defines popular participation as 'the organized efforts to increase control over resources and movements of those hitherto excluded from such control'. Popular participation was to carve out a new meaning for, and a new image of, development, based on different forms of interaction and a common search for this new 'popular' knowledge. The political function of participation was to provide development with a new source of legitimation, assigning to it the task of empowering the voiceless and the powerless and also, eventually, of creating a bridge between the Establishment and its target populations, including even the groups opposing development. The notion of empowerment was intended to help participation perform one main political function to provide development with a new source of legitimation. Anyhow, participation soon turns into a parody, and an invitation to manipulative designs, when it represents only a ritual amongst alienated persons acting as programmed robots.
