In a world where the spread of capitalism and globalization threatens to exacerbate inequality, policies that seek to reimagine the nature of citizen participation as it relates to democratic governance have the potential to redistribute resources and capital back to poor and marginalized individuals. Participatory local governance could be the key to more inclusive and robust forms of development, where the rift between regular people and the institutions that govern their lives is bridged by linking participation to the state at a local level. The notion of ‘deepening democracy’ through programs of decentralized governance empowers individuals to make allocative decisions predicated on their own lived experience of needs and shortcomings – it allows them to use available resources to fill in the gaps where the bureaucratic nature of government has failed them (Heller and Rao, 2015).

However, it is crucial to consider what the building blocks are of creating deliberative systems that effectively interface with the state at a grassroots level. Gaventa poses six propositions that are fundamental to productively implementing participatory local governance: (1) closing the gap between the poor and institutions that govern their lives, (2) building relationships between citizens and their local governments through new forms of participation, accountability and responsiveness, (3) rethinking how citizens voices are represented in the political process using the idea of empowered deliberative democracy, (4) learning about positive and negative outcomes dynamically and focusing on the extent outcomes have been realized (5) Building conditions for success of empowered deliberative democracy (EDD), and (6) contesting the ‘local’ in the era of globalization by examining the agenda of actors that promote participatory discourse, and ensuring that it results in genuine opportunities for democracy building at the local level. (Gaventa, 2001).

Empowered deliberative democracy is a participatory process that relies on the participation and capacity of ordinary people, cultivates outcomes from reason-based decision making, and ties results to action (Gaventa, 2001). It breeds accountability, inclusion, and mobilization with real power to influence institutions and policies using a bottom-up approach. It is important to consider, as Gaventa postulates in his fifth proposition, what the conditions for success are in implementing and maintaining EDD. Gaventa also notes Heller’s work suggests that the three enabling conditions of participatory governance are a strong central state capacity, well developed civil society and an organized political force with strong social movement characteristics. The implications of these conditions see their impact in the replicability of EDD – they are not broadly generalizable but rather require some institutional structures for success. Furthermore, Fung and Wright delineate three principles that are fundamental to EDD and institutional building respectively. The principles of EDD are a focus on specific and real problems, the involvement of individuals affected by these problems and relevant officials, and the use of deliberative development as a tool to derive solutions to these problems. (Fung and Wright, 2003). Fung and Wright go on to state that the design principles of EDD or EPG are the devolution of public decision making authority, formal linkages or responsibility, resource distribution and communication, and the use and generation of new state institutions to support and guide these efforts.

While empowered deliberative democracy in theory works to diffuse state power and resources in a meaningful way to combat inequality, in what ways can the outcomes be measured as they pertain to the goals of citizen participation and participatory local governance? Fung and Wright provide a metric to relate case studies to the model of EPG, in which there are six critical dimensions of fit: (1) how genuinely deliberative the actual decision making process is, (2) how effectively decisions are translated into action, (3) the extent to which deliberative bodies are able to effectively monitor the implementation of their decisions, (4) to what extent the reforms incorporate recombinant measures that coordinate the actions of local units and diffuse innovations (5) to what extent deliberative processes increase the deliberative capacities and dispositions of those who participate in them, and (6) whether the outcomes of the process are more desirable than those of prior institutional arrangements (Fung and Wright, 2003).

There are many favorable outcomes to empowered deliberative democracy, however it is important to consider its criticisms, especially in understanding where it has the potential to go wrong. Fung and Wright summarize the six critical drawbacks of EPG which can be abridged to concerns about vulnerability to domination of power within deliberative arenas by elites or factions, severe limitations imposed on the scope of deliberative decision and action by external actors and institutional contexts in the pursuit of self interest, unrealistic expectations of commitment in climates of civic and political apathy, and long term sustainability. Silver, Scott and Kazepov (2010) also identify the unequal power of participants resulting from asymmetrical access to information and pre-existing class inequality. They suggest that there are means to combat power disparity amongst participants by implementing legal and regulatory reforms that systematically empower poor and marginalized groups. Examples of such legislation includes but is not limited to selecting convenient times and places for meetings (keeping in mind the schedule of the working individual), enforcing universal and inclusive civil rights, and using public funds to subsidize the operations of marginalized groups via organizations (Fung and Wright, 2003). As both Gaventa and Fung and Wright also posit, citizen participation is predicated on effective and robust social inclusion, which is quite a tall order. Initiatives taken to achieve such levels of social inclusion might constitute components of outreach, affirmative action or quotas (Fishkin, 1995; Cabannes, 2004; Avritzer, 2006; Sintomer et al., 2008 cited by Silver, Scott and Kazepov, 2010).

Lastly, it is important to consider the historical and political context of democracy within a state. With increasing globalization, nations have a tendency to shift their political systems towards democracy to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) influxes. The issue of whether institutions of democracy can truly take root in former communist countries is still largely uncharted territory, especially with respect to deliberative systems. However, democratization has been shown to be an issue even in non-communist nations with weakly institutionalized democratic institutions or no historical tradition of democratic rule (Heller and Rao, 2015). Therefore, along with Heller and Rao’s 3 criterion for a state’s successful implementation of EDD, cultural context and pre-existing institutional structures play a crucial role in the effectiveness of implementing empowered deliberative democracy from both a bottom-up and top-down perspective.