Marie Michael Library

Triumph, deficit or contestation? Deepening the 'Deepening Democracy' debate

Gaventa, John

This paper focuses on debates within the 'deepening democracy' field, a school of thinking that focuses on developing and sustaining citizen participation in the democratic process. The paper explores four approaches of democracy and how they differ from one another. It argues that democracy-building is an ongoing process rather than the adoption of a standard institutional design, and suggests challenges which future work on deepening democracy may need to address.