Democratic Citizenship: From Proportionality to a Continuum Approach to Political Participation

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to explore the meaning and significance of political participation within (a) the conceptual framework of democratic citizenship and (b) debates surrounding representative democracy.  It consists of three parts; the first examines the idea of representative democracy and the manner in which democratic politics may be sought to be crafted as a continuum between representation and participation; the second looks at the global experience and experiments in electoral designs and political reservation for women; and the third examines debates on women’s political participation and representation in India along with election data to identify possible patterns, followed by a discussion of the ways in which civil society organisations have sought to address themselves to reforming the electoral system, in particular by addressing the voter or empowering her through specific rights.