William Nylen begins by discussing North Americans' love-hate relationship with politics and politicians, then shows how Brazilians feel the same way (as do many citizens of democracies throughout the world). He argues that this is so because contemporary democracies have increasingly trickled up and away from so-called 'average citizens'. We now live in a world of 'Elitist Democracies' essentially constructed of, by and for moneyed, well-connected and ethically-challenged elites. Fortunately, there are alternatives, and that's where Brazil offers valuable lessons. Experiments in local-level participatory democracy, put into practice in Brazil by the Workers Party show both the promise and the practical limitations of efforts to promote 'popular participation' and citizen empowerment.
"Nylen has the courage to reopen the fundamental question of whether a workable democracy has to be remote, media-mediated experience, or whether there is a way to reestablish the old Greek notion of citizenship as participation." - Douglas Chalmers, Director, Institute of Latin American Studies, Columbia University
"William Nylen's Participatory Democracy vs. Elitist Democracy: Lessons from Brazil is 'controversial' in the best tradition of the social sciences. Reminiscent of Tocqueville's classic Democracy in America, Nylen's study eschews the conventions of mainstream comparative politics to highlight surprising commonalities between democratic politics in Brazil, one of the world's most egregiously unequal societies with a deeply rooted legacy of authoritarianism, and the maladies of representative democracy and widespread civic disengagement in the contemporary United States. Passionately written and theoretically sophisticated, this examination of the complexities and realities of "participatory budgeting" in several of Brazil's cities governed by the Workers' Party advances many insights and lessons about the pathologies and cynicism of elite dominated politics everywhere, including our own country." - William C. Smith, University of Miami, Editor, Latin American Politics and Society
