Participation: taking part in a civic process

Participation is taking part in a civic process: answering a consultation, attending a meeting, proposing an idea, or voting. Participants are those who took part; they are not the same as the whole public. In the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the Census Bureau estimated that 65.3% of the citizen voting-age population voted, which also means more than a third did not.

Definition

The site glossary defines participation as taking part in a civic process, such as answering, attending, proposing, or voting, and notes that participants are not the same as the whole public (see the short entry in the glossary). Every participation figure therefore has two parts: a count of who took part and a denominator saying out of whom. “Turnout” means little until the denominator is named: registered voters, eligible citizens, or all adults give different rates.

Participation also differs in power. Sherry Arnstein’s 1969 article, “A Ladder of Citizen Participation,” argued that “citizen participation is citizen power” and arranged forms of participation on eight rungs.⁠¹ At the bottom are manipulation and therapy; in the middle, informing, consultation, and placation, which she called degrees of tokenism; at the top, partnership, delegated power, and citizen control.⁠¹ Her ladder is an argument, not a measurement, but it names a real distinction between being asked and being able to decide.

Origin and history

Arnstein drew her examples from U.S. federal programs of the 1960s, naming “urban renewal, anti-poverty, and Model Cities,” and her central claim was that there is “a critical difference between going through the empty ritual of participation and having the real” power to affect outcomes.⁠¹ Since then, governments and researchers have built many forms of participation between elections, from public comment to citizens’ assemblies and participatory budgeting. The history of these practices is in Participation between elections.

How participation is measured

Voting is the most measured form. The Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Voting and Registration Supplement reported for 2024 that “65.3% (or 154 million people) voted” and that 73.6% of the citizen voting-age population was registered.⁠² These are survey estimates and can differ from administrative counts; the Bureau notes factors such as “vote misreporting”.⁠²

Participation in other processes is harder to measure, because denominators are rarely defined. A city may report that 500 people commented on a plan without saying how many residents were eligible to comment or how those 500 differ from everyone else. Those who participate in voluntary processes are self-selected, which is the problem described under opt-in sample and nonresponse bias. Participation can also be concentrated: a small group participating often can outweigh a large group participating rarely, unless the process limits repeat input.

Common confusions and neighboring terms

• Participation vs. representation. Participation is acting for oneself; representation is someone acting on others’ behalf.
• Participation vs. influence. Taking part does not guarantee that anyone acts on the result. Arnstein’s ladder is about this gap.⁠¹
• Participation vs. public opinion. Participants’ views are participation data. Public opinion requires a design that reaches non-participants.
• Participation vs. registration. Registration is a precondition for voting in most states; it is not itself participation in a decision.

How My Vote Forward uses the term

My Vote Forward treats participation as continuous rather than limited to election day, under its language “My priorities. My opinion. My vote.” Its Participation over time chapter describes how people might take part between elections. The framework always reports participants as participants, with denominators, and never as the public. Whether reading and learning should count as participation, or only recorded actions, is an open question on this site. Demo participation is simulated.

Unresolved questions

• Should participation count reading and learning, or only recorded actions?
• How can a system prevent a small, highly active group from dominating results without discouraging participation?
• What would move a priorities system up Arnstein’s ladder, and who would have to agree?