ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book suggests that the ideal and the practices of democracy can be best understood by studying new and innovative forms of participation, both in the contemporary period and in history, with an emphasis on alternative and critical approaches to power. Central to the notion of democracy, which refers to the inclusion of people in the democratic process, is the concept of participation, which is both omnipresent and often poorly defined in the academic literature on democratic theory. The book reflects on the establishment and development of a dominant political model, not in the shape of a linear progression towards a more advanced form of democracy, but as a process marked by advances and retreats. It explains the pluralism of a system in which claims from 'the excluded' within civil society highlight their rights to participate in various forms of contestation and dissent.
