Ambivalence and Agonism of Public Participation in Contemporary Societies

Olga Zvonareva and Claudia Egher
Additional contact information
Olga Zvonareva: Care and Public Health Research Institute, Maastricht University, The Netherlands
Claudia Egher: Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Social Inclusion, 2025, vol. 13

Abstract: In this editorial we introduce the thematic issue “Public Participation Amidst Hostility: When the Uninvited Shape Matters of Collective Concern.” The aim of this issue is twofold. First, it takes stock of various ways in which public participation can be hindered, directly and indirectly. Second, it investigates different kinds of participatory practices that emerge in situations of hostility towards public participation. Given that participation in such situations often involves working around formal procedures and public spaces and depends on remaining hidden, particular attention is paid to de‐publicised participatory practices. Overall, the articles in this thematic issue show how hostilities co‐develop with specific participatory practices that, in turn, attune to, navigate, and resist the particular (hostile) circumstances in which they arise. The articles draw attention to the ambivalence and, in some cases, agonistic quality of participatory processes in contemporary societies, where mutually constitutive relations between participation and hostilities towards it shape matters of collective concern, political agendas, and possible futures.

Keywords: agonism; barriers to participation; democracy; exclusion; hostilities to participation; non‐democracy; public engagement; public issues; public participation; uninvited participation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/10095 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:socinc:v13:y:2025:a:10095

DOI: 10.17645/si.10095

Access Statistics for this article

Social Inclusion is currently edited by Mariana Pires

More articles in Social Inclusion from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().