EDITED BY GERAINT PAllKY PARTICIPATION IN POLITICS INTRODUCTION Geraint Parry The idea of political participation ASPIRATION AND REALITY:THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE Anthony Arblaster Partici­ pation: context and conflict S.E.Piner Groups and political participation Michael Steed Participa­ tion through Western democratic institutions Dennis Kavanagh Political behaviour and politi­ cal participation MARXISM AND PARTICIPATION: THEORY AND PRACTICE Michael Evans Karl Marx and the concept of political participation Norman Geras Political participation in the revolution­ ary thought of Leon Trotsky Olga A. Narkiewicz Political participation and the Soviet State John Gardner Political participation and Chinese Communism PARTICIPATION, EDUCATION AND DEVELOP­ MENT C.H.Dodd Political participation and educa­ tion: the Turkish experience Dennis Austin and William Tordoff The newly independent states PARTICIPATION AND LOCAL POLITICS J. C. Bulpitt Participation and local government: territorial democracy Cyril S. Smith and Bryce Anderson Political participation through community action 'Participation' has become one of the most popular words in the language of politics. It has found favour amongst radical reformers who have wished to transform society and amongst leading politicians who have sought to defend established political pro­ cedures. The idea of participation is essen­ tial to democracy and perhaps even to poli­ tics itself. Despite this it is an idea which has rarely been subjected to academic analysis. The papers in this volume arise out of a Seminar organised by the Department of Government at the University of Manchester in which specialists in comparative govern­ ment political behaviour, community studies and political theory came together to discuss the aspirations and the reality of political participation. The book makes no attempt to formulate a single definition of participation nor. though it is wide ranging, does it claim to be exhaustive. Rather, the contributors hoped by a comparative study of participa­ tion in liberal-democratic and communist countries, in developed and developing nations, at local and national level, in ancient and modern theorising, to illustrate some of the complexities of the idea and to stimulate further study. The papers are collected in five parts. An introduction analyses the idea of participa­ tion and traces the contrasting ways in which participation has been justified in the history of political thought. Four papers then exam­ ine the hopes and the realities of participa­ tion in liberal-democratic societies. Two essays on Marxist theories of participation are then followed by two contrasting papers on the practice of Soviet Russia and Com­ munist China. The third part looks at the related themes of participation, education, and development, taking as instances the experience of Turkey and of a number of continued on back flap PARTICIPATION IN POLITICS Participation in politics BRYCE ANDERSON ANTHONY ARBLASTER DENNIS AUSTIN J. G. BULPITT C. H. DODD MICHAEL EVANS S. E. FINER JOHN GARDNER NORMAN GERAS DENNIS KAVANAGH OLGA A. NARKIEWICZ GERAINT PARRY CYRIL S. SMITH MICHAEL STEED WILLIAM TORDOFF Edited by GERAINT PARRY MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS ROWMAN AND LITTLEFIELD © 1972 Manchester University Press All rights reserved Published by Manchester University Press 316-324 Oxford Road Manchester M13 9NR isbn 0 7190 0506 x U.S.A. Rowman and Littlefield 81 Adams Drive Totowa New Jersey 07512 isbn 0 87471 131 2 Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd, Frome and London CONTENTS Preface page vii Acknowledgments xi Parti INTRODUCTION 1 1 Geraint Parry The idea of political participation 3 Part II ASPIRATION AND REALITY: THE LIBERAL- DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE 39 2 Anthony Arblaster Participation: context and conflict 41 3 S. E. Finer Groups and political participation 59 4 Michael Steed Participation through Western democratic institutions 80 5 Dennis Kavanagh Political behaviour and political participation 102 Part III MARXISM AND PARTICIPATION: THEORY AND PRACTICE 125 6 Michael Evans Karl Marx and the concept of political participation 127 7 Norman Geras Political participation in the revolutionary thought of Leon Trotsky 151 8 Olga A. Narkiewicz Political participation and the Soviet State 169 9 John Gardner Political participation and Chinese Communism 218 Part IV PARTICIPATION, EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 247 10 C. H. Dodd Political participation and education: the Turkish experience 249 11 Dennis Austin and William Tordoff The newly independent states 267 Part V PARTICIPATION AND LOCAL POLITICS 279 12 J. G. Bulpitt Participation and local government: territorial democracy 281 13 Cyril S. Smith and Bryce Anderson Political participation through community action 303 Notes on contributors 319 Bibliography 321 Index 335 PREFACE ‘Participation’ has become of late a vogue word in politics employed for very varying purposes by radical critic and established authority alike. The origin of the present volume lies in meetings of the Senior Politics Seminar at the University of Manchester in 1969-70 when staff and graduates met to consider to what extent a term which had entered the popular political vocabulary was susceptible of academic analysis. The Seminar was organised and the contri­ butors invited by Professors Ghita Ionescu and Dennis Austin. It was then felt that it would be useful to assemble the papers and the research into a volume for a wider audience. As author of the introductory paper I was asked to act as editor, collecting and arranging the order of the papers. The papers were then revised in the light of the seminar discussions, though they remain the individual responsibility of their authors. Dennis Kavanagh and J. G. Bulpitt, of the University of Warwick, were invited subsequently to contribute papers on themes which had not been discussed in the original seminar. It was not the original intention (and is certainly not the outcome) to discover an agreed definition of political participation. Rather, we hoped to examine some of the most significant and characteristic theories of participation, to explore some of the ways in which people may be said to participate in politics and to understand the conditions which might encourage, or might discourage, their participation. This examination is carried out in many instances by means of a study of particular countries or processes, often comparative in approach. But it makes no pretence to comprehensiveness; instead, it tries to illumin­ ate selected forms and areas of political participation in such a way as to be helpful in the further analysis of the nature of participation in other political contexts. One common thread does run through the papers,as it did through the seminar discussions, and it might even have served as a sub-title to the volume. This is the contrast between ‘aspiration’ and ‘reality’, between what has been the hope and the anticipation of those who have fervently believed in extending and intensifying political activity and commitment, and the actual levels of partici­ pation to be found in the political world, whether it is in the liberal democracies of the West, in communist societies or in the developing nations. The contrast is often striking and is as readily admitted by the participationists as it is hammered home by those who are sometimes termed the ‘elitist democrats’. How is this contrast to be explained? Is it, as some liberals would assert, that people wish to be free not to participate and that this desire is worthy of every respect? Is it, as participationists have long held, that the institutional struc­ tures of modern states actively discourage participation and have an enervating effect on political activity? Or is it, as J. G. Bulpitt suggests at one point, that the protagonists of participation have so often been ‘trimmers’ who have exploited the ideal in favour only of certain limited kinds of participation? Or is it, more fundamentally still, that modern institutions not merely inhibit participation but that widespread and intensive participation is inconsistent Vlll PREFACE with the scale of modern life and must be seen as another of the many dreams from an idealised and largely mythical political past? This theme of aspiration and reality is immediately recognisable in the open­ ing papers. After the editor’s introductory paper distinguishing some of the problems of analysing political participation and reviewing two theories of participation—‘instrumental’ and ‘developmental’—Anthony Arblaster presents the participationist case as it has been recently revived. He ends by calling for a declaration of faith in the participatory ideal. S. E. Finer’s paper, by contrast, examines the realities of group participation, discovers the low degree of commitment to political activity even in the most currently favourable democratic conditions, and concludes that there is little ground for expecting that participation would, or indeed could, substantially increase, and some ground for believing that participatory politics are undesirable. It is a similar antithesis between democratic hopes and democratic behaviour which has been a major concern of recent American literature in political behaviour, and has even given rise to what is frequently designated as a new ‘elitist’ theory of democracy. The fundamental assumptions and techniques of this literature are critically examined in Dennis Kavanagh’s chapter. Michael Steed analyses the attempts and the failures of Western democratic institutions to promote both instrumental and developmental participation. Historically, too, hopes for a new participatory democracy can scarcely have been more aroused in modern times than by Marxism and the promise of the twentieth-century revolutions. Michael Evans analyses in detail the range of Marx’s treatments of the associated ideas of politics and participation, and ends by posing once more the question as to how participation is to be reconciled with both the advantages of social authority and the requisites of individual liberty. Norman Geras examines the relation between participation and revolu­ tionary action in Trotsky’s thought, showing his underlying concern with participation in what were necessarily both instrumental and developmental terms. In Olga Narkiewicz’s study the contrast with Soviet reality is made apparent. She traces the decline of the participatory ideal of the ‘soviet’ and of the aspirations of Lenin’s State and Revolution into a system of administrative rule with some elements of social participation. In China mass participation has, as John Gardner explains, played a more vital role both in Mao’s thought and in political practice. Yet here again bureaucratic elitism has re-emerged and despite the purgative force of participation in the Cultural Revolution participatory institutions have been little developed. In the developing nations of the world participation is, more so perhaps than was ever imagined by the classical participation theories of the West, a learning process. By participating, or by being brought face-to-face with the limits of participation, their subjects are educated to their role as citizens. Any educa­ tional theory is inevitably also a political theory in that it shapes, and also eliminates, potential political participants. C. H. Dodd examines this process both conceptually and by a more detailed examination of Turkish experience. Dennis Austin and William Tordoff find that in the new states participation falls well short of early expectations aroused by the apparently mass nature of nationalist politics. New elites emerged or seized power to whom mass partici­ pation might prove dangerous. Neither considerations of governmental stability