Participatory Democracy Quotes

• Democracy is not a spectator sport, it's a participatory event. If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy.

  Michael Moore

  Sports, Democracy, Events

  "'Capitalism is evil,' says new Michael Moore film" by Mike Collett-White, www.reuters.com. September 6, 2009.

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• This is supposed to be a participatory democracy and if we're not in there participating then the people that will manipulate and exploit the system will step in there.

  George Takei

  People, Democracy, Manipulation

  "CJAD" with Peter Anthony Holder, www.peteranthonyholder.com. November 21, 1994.

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• Neoliberal democracy. Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless. In sum, neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine participatory democracy, not just in the United States but across the planet, and will be for the foreseeable future.

  Noam Chomsky

  Shopping, Community, Enemy

  Noam Chomsky (2011). “Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order”, p.8, Seven Stories Press

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• The good society was, like the good self, a diverse yet harmonious, growing yet unified whole, a fully participatory democracy in which the powers and capacities of the individuals that comprised it were harmonized by their cooperative activities into a community that permitted the full and free expression of individuality.

  John Dewey

  Self, Expression, Community

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• In this world which is losing faith in so called representative democracy, there are new developments in participatory democracy. These are very interesting developments, reflecting the revitalization of community power with a more and more active presence of minorities in political life, including the presence of women who are of course by no means a minority.

  Eduardo Galeano

  Mean, Interesting, Community

  Source: apracticalpolicy.org

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• I'm sometimes impatient with young people who demonstrate at my meetings and who don't want an argument, but who just want to go on television as having been there and made a fuss. This doesn't mean I don't believe in participatory democracy.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Believe, Mean, People

  Source: presbyterianrecord.ca

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• When we talk about Cuban democracy we are referring to participatory democracy which is big difference with representative bourgeois democracy. Our is a democracy in which everything is consulted with the people; it is a democracy in which every aspect and important decision that has an impact in the life and society of the people, is done in consultation.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Differences, Impact, People

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• I'm impatient not with the House of Commons as an institution, but with the way in which it is operated. This doesn't prove I don't believe in participatory democracy.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Believe, House, Democracy

  Source: presbyterianrecord.ca

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• In other words, the bar should be maintained at the level of a pluralistic and participatory democracy.

  Recep Tayyip Erdogan

  Democracy, Bars, Levels

  "Democracy in the Middle East, PluralIism in Europe: Turkish View". Recep Tayyip Erdogan, The Turkish Weekly, October 12, 2004.

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• In Cuba, what we do not accept is the comparison of our participatory democracy with bourgeois democracy which has not solved anything for humanity. The only thing it has done is to take humanity towards a precarious point. They have created the environmental crisis, the food crisis, the water crisis and the pandemics all over the world. The reason for that is because they have taken the majority of the resources and given it to militarism paid for by the western powers because it is a great business for them; this is the real truth.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Real, Taken, Water

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• It is equally unreasonable to run a university as a "participatory democracy," the approach to governance that once existed in Europe. That approach in European institutions of higher learning was appealing to professors because it was democratic. But those institutions also suffered because they lacked an executive decision-making process; making changes became virtually impossible.

  Henry Rosovsky

  Running, Europe, Decision

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Many people are alienated by faceless bureaucracy and what they see as an erosion of participatory democracy. Consequently, there has been a revival of interest in charitable service.

  Frank Prochaska

  Erosion, People, Democracy

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• One must be wary of the view that these loose and diverse coalitions represent a new form of globalized participatory democracy. The dissent industry is largely a product of the Internet revolution. Inexpensive, borderless, real-time networking provides advocacy non-governmental organizations [NGOs] with economies of scale and also of scope by linking widely disparate groups with one common theme.

  Sylvia Ostry

  Real, Views, Organization

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• The menu of this kitchen will have more than soup; it will serve as an opportunity to explore the vast untapped power of food as a force for participatory democracy, as a means of empowerment for those who have little and as a lens through which we embrace, and in fact relish, our differences but see and live through our commonalities. If you eat, then you are a part of this.

  Sam Kass

  Mean, Opportunity, Differences

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