Democracy Participation Quotes & Sayings

We all know that election reform takes time. That's because those who have benefited from the system are the ones who fight hardest to preserve it. So if we're going to succeed, we need an independent coalition of citizens who believe in reform, who believe that our election laws should treat every voter equally, who believe that low levels of competition and participation are not healthy for democracy. The Independence Party is helping to build that coalition and I am happy to join you in doing so. — Michael Bloomberg

Democracy is a daring concept - a hope that we'll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people. — Brian Eno

A democracy can't succeed without people's participation. 'MyGov' empowers the people of India to contribute towards Surajya. — Narendra Modi

We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation. — Wynton Marsalis

The digital revolution has deepened the crisis within representative democracy. But as it forces its demise, it might also dictate its future. Traditional representative democracy within nations is no longer enough. People want more participation and collaboration with their government. — Eduardo Paes

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The highest measure of democracy is neither the 'extent of freedom' nor the 'extent of equality', but rather the highest measure of participation. — Alain De Benoist

Neoliberalism works best when there is formal electoral democracy, but when the population is diverted from the information, access, and public forums necessary for meaningful participation in decision making. — Noam Chomsky

We do not understand democracy in its bourgeois meaning
of babbling, lack of discipline, anarchy. We understand democracy as the active participation of the citizens in formulating and implementing the Party's policy. — Nicolae Ceausescu

The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation, — Jens Stoltenberg

But, you know, I'm sorry, I think democracy requires participation. I mean, I don't want to proselytize but I do feel some sort of duty to participate in the process in some way other than just blindly getting behind a political party. — John Cusack

Because widespread participation is so central to popular sovereignty, we can say that the less political participation there is in a society, the weaker the democracy. — Edward S. Greenberg

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government. — Barack Obama

The only part of my mother's experience that still gets to me is the way she and people like her were looked down upon for asking America to be America, for asking for full and equal participation in our democracy. — Julian Castro

It is a mistake to tell students that their classroom is a democracy- it cannot and never will be. But children need to learn how to participate in a community and to prepare themselves for democratic citizenship. — Karen Bohlin

Democracy is a proposal (rarely realized) about decision making; it has little to do with election campaigns. Its promise is that political decisions be made after, and in the light of, consultation with the governed. This is dependent upon the governed being adequately informed about the issues in question, and upon the decision-makers having the capacity and will to listen and take account of what they have heard. Democracy should not be confused with the 'freedom' of binary choices, the publication of opinion polls or the crowding of people into statistics. These are its pretences. Today the fundamental decisions, which effect the unnecessary pain increasingly suffered across the planet, have been and are taken unilaterally without any open consultation or participation. Both — John Berger

Democracy requires active participation, and sooner or later someone 'offers' to take all the difficult decision-making away from you and your hectic life. But the darknet throws those decisions back onto you. It hard-codes democracy into the DNA of civilization. You upvote and downvote many times a day on things that directly affect your life and the lives of people around you - not just once every few years on things you haven't got a chance in hell of affecting. — Daniel Suarez

When it comes to democracy, its key element is participation. When it comes to participation, its key element is quality of the participants. — Khem Veasna

In an age of widespread communication and accountability, people expect political participation and accountability much more than they did in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. The only way the demand for meaningful political participation and choice can be suppressed is to constrain liberty - Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), Chapter 1 ('Defining and Developing Democracy'). p. 4 — Larry Diamond

Freedom of expression - in particular, freedom of the press - guarantees popular participation in the decisions and actions of government, and popular participation is the essence of our democracy. — Corazon Aquino

A democratic society must seek to give every young person, whether native-born or newcomer, the knowledge and skills to succeed as an adult. In a political system that relies on the participation of informed citizens, everyone should, at a minimum, learn to speak, read and write a common language. Those who would sustain our democratic life must understand its history. Tailoring children's education to the color of their skin, their national origins, or their presumed ethnicity is in some fundamental sense contrary to our nation's founding ideals of democracy, equality and opportunity. — Diane Ravitch

We want no dictatorship of physicists, as physicists. If our democracy is to realize its full promise, we want no dictatorship at all - of any species. What we want and need is the enlightened and active interest of all men of intelligence and goodwill in their government, and their participation in its functions. — Jerome Frank

What we are witnessing is the birth of something I call 'Polisdigitocracy.' This is a form of government that counts participation and transparency as its cornerstones and uses technology as its guide. The digital revolution is allowing democracy to recall its foundations and evolution is modernizing and reinforcing our fundamental values. — Eduardo Paes

Some observers compare elections in some countries with sports events, where people are but spectators. Moreover, elections must not be mere interludes for pushing a lever and then retreating to passivity, for democracy demands committed participation in the daily workings of society. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

In Plato's Republic, Socrates expresses great fear about democracy because it is, in his mind, synonymous with freedom. The result is tyranny. But modern times have brought us a different understanding of democracy as an ideal. It is how to give the appearance of democracy yet deny it in practice, ensuring that democracy in its false form gives consent by the people to a small group, the oligarchs. This is accomplished through a combination of the people's silence and a rigged system that changes a working democracy of public participation and deliberation to a charade. — Noam Chomsky

As far as domestic democracy, all here present know that democracy means government of the people by the people. While we agree that consultation and participation are essential to every democracy, this is seldom achieved in practice. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

We're not going back anywhere, we're going forward, we're going forward in democracy, we're going forward in participation, we're going forward with ideas. — Jeremy Corbyn

There is a connection waiting to be made between the decline in democratic participation and the explosion in new ways of communicating. We need not accept the paradox that gives us more ways than ever to speak, and leaves the public with a wider feeling than ever before that their voices are not being heard. The new technologies can strengthen our democracy, by giving us greater opportunities than ever before for better transparency and a more responsive relationship between government and electors — Robin Cook

We must face the bitter fact that we have forsaken our great dream of a life of, for, and by the people; that the burning passions and ideals of the American dream lie congealed by cold cynicism. Great parts of the masses of our people no longer believe that they have a voice or a hand in shaping the destiny of this nation. They have not forsaken democracy because of any desire or positive action of their own; they have been driven down into the depths of a great despair born of frustration, hopelessness, and apathy. A democracy lacking in popular participation dies of paralysis. — Saul Alinsky

The era of using people as production tools is coming to an end. Participation is infinitely more complex to practice than conventional corporate unilateralism, just as democracy is much more cumbersome than dictatorship. But there will be few companies that can afford to ignore either of them. — Ricardo Semler

To pay attention to the actual core of the movement - that would be pretty hard. Can you concentrate for example on either the policy issues or the creation of functioning democratic communities of mutual support and say, well, that's what's lacking in our country that's why we don't have a functioning democracy - a community of real participation. That's really important. And that always gets smashed. — Noam Chomsky

What we need in Africa is balanced development. Economic success cannot be a replacement for human rights or participation or democracy ... it doesn't work. — Mo Ibrahim

It can sound trite if you just say citizens need to be educated for democracy to work, but for him it wasn't trite. It was really this strenuous challenge to citizens to use their moments of leisure, which he defined as time away from work, to collect the facts that were necessary for full democratic participation. — Jeffrey Rosen

The war industries in many countries and the enormous trade in weapons of all kinds generate corruption and fuel conflict throughout the world. The existence of an immensely powerful military-industrial complex constitutes a danger to democracy, both internationally and domestically, because it follows its own logic and operates independently of popular participation. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

Direct democracy is lazy anarchy, for people who don't want to be governed but are too lazy to govern themselves. They want participation served to them. — Heather Marsh

We must never stop fighting for a vision of American democracy in which we strive for and encourage the highest levels of voter turnout and participation. — Eric Schneiderman

Accountability is the essence of democracy. If people do not know what their government is doing, they cannot be truly self-governing. The national security state assumes the government secrets are too important to be shared, that only those in the know can see classified information, that only the president has all the facts, that we must simply trust that our rulers of acting in our interest. — Garry Wills

Full democracy requires the full participation of women. Your voices are vital. The word 'vital' means necessary for life. A democracy, to be fully alive, must include all its citizens. — Swanee Hunt

One of the most interesting reactions to come out of 1968 was in the first publication of the Trilateral Commission, which believed there was a 'crisis of democracy' from too much participation of the masses. — Noam Chomsky

Balancing the common good with the freedom and liberty to exercise that individuality has been and remains a challenge for those committed to democracy while understanding that the polis ensures our participation and therefore our citizenship. — David Blunkett