Abstract

RABASA GAMBOA, Emilio. Participatory democracy, a response to the crisis of representative democracry. Cuest. Const. [online]. 2020, n.43, pp.351-376.  Epub Dec 13, 2021. ISSN 1405-9193.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iij.24484881e.2020.43.15188.

The central thesis of this article consists in argueing that the actual crisis of representative democracy, due to a political fatigue that has caused a descontent and mistrust of the represented citicenship by their representatives, has provoked mainly in this century, the emergence of diverse mechanisms of direct democracy such as popular consultation, referendum, plebiscite, mandate recall and others analized in the text.

To provide theoretical foundation to my thesis, several updated authors that have researched the crisis of democracy and elections, are included such as Levitsky y Ziblatt (How Democracies Die), Yasch Mounk (The People vs Democracy), Temelkuran (How to lose a country), Cadena Roa y López Leyva (The disconfort with representation in Mexico) y Van Reybrouck (Against elections, how to save democracy). In the same token and at more depth, the present crisis is analyzed through the genesis and design of representative democracy with autors such as Benajmin Contant, Hans Kelsen and Roberto Gargarella, in order to argue that its origin lies in the XVIII Century, but has now become more acute due to changing economic condictios in societies fallen wellbeing that grew during last century´s 30s and 80s; social such as the growth of migration and the new pluriethnic changes in modern societies composition, and the comunicaions revolution with internet and social media.

Next is included an analysis of democracy´s types (representative, direct, paritipatory, deliberative and radical) with the purpose of proposing an armonic fusion of representative democracy´s diverse components with others of participatory democracy, as a solution to the present political crisis. Other countries´experience in that road in Latin America such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia are included to grasp a comparative view. Finally Mexico´s direct democracy´s mechanisms in force in the federal constitution (including the recent constitucional reform of December 2019) Mexico´s City constitution and other states, are presented to support the main thesis of this article.

Closing remarks include counter-argument about the difficuties of constitutional engeniering for melting together both types of democracy.

Keywords : representative democracy; democratic fatigue; participatory democracy; democracy´s present day crisis; Mexico´s direct democracy types (popular consultation; referendum; plebiscite; mandate recall) democratic melting.

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