Responding to Democracy’s Critics

Abstract

This final chapter carries out three tasks. First, it asks how far the empirical focus taken in the research has been useful in underpinning an analysis of democratic participation in Blackbird Leys, spelling out the ways in which such a starting point can make a valuable contribution to existing work. Second, it draws on the results from the fieldwork to ask what the case study of Blackbird Leys reveals about the ways in which deprivation really affects participation. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it considers the theoretical implications of the findings, drawing on the fieldwork to consider how proponents of participatory democracy might respond to some of the criticisms they face, and in particular, to the challenges of minimal democracy.