Participation: Analytical Trajectories and a Proposed Model for its Research in Political Studies

Abstract

Participation tends to be an ambiguous, vague and vacuous term, which hinders its usefulness as a valid analytical category in political studies. This article aims to reduce the terminological confusion of participation through three analytical strategies: recognizing the political essence of the concept, identifying its essential defining attributes and proposing a model of exhaustive variables for its systematic approach. The concept of participation is analyzed through four core factors as basic questions: “what?”, “why?”, “what for?” and “how?”, that is, the definitions, the reasons, the objectives and the modalities of the participation. The analytical model is structured around four types of factors that influence participation: structural, institutional, contextual and individual variables. The conceptual inquiry concludes that participation refers to a process that, despite starting at the individual level, acquires meaning in the collective space, so that participatory processes depend on the structures, institutions, contexts, actors, values and practices framed in the interaction between constituted powers and constituent powers.