ABSTRACT
Since the 1960s, participatory discourses and techniques have been at the core of decision-making processes in a variety of sectors of society and of policy domains around the world - a phenomenon often referred to as the participatory turn. Originally associated with this turn has been a strong critique of liberal and representative democracy, the corollary idea of a 'real utopia,' that is, the necessary radicalization of democratic practices, and a rethinking of the public sphere. Participatory practices have also grown in a variety of - sometimes unexpected - public and private spaces. As a radical political project, participatory democracy originally involved a transformative dimension: the idea was indeed that participation could transform the inegalitarian relationships between the state and society and that it could help to emancipate and empower citizens in every sphere of their daily lives. This political project is clearly difficult to 'capture'.
