Participation in social science is an umbrella term including different means for the public to directly participate in political, economic, management or other social decisions. Ideally, each actor would have a say in decisions directly proportional to the degree that particular decision affects him or her. Those not affected by a decision would have no say and those exclusively affected by a decision would have full say. Likewise, those most affected would have the most say while those least affected would have the least say. Participatory decision making infers a level of proportionate decision making power and can take place along any realm of human social activity, including economic (ie Participatory economics), political (ie Participatory democracy or parpolity), cultural (ie intercommunalism) or familial (ie Feminism). The social sciences are groups of academic disciplines that study the human aspects of the world. ... Economics (deriving from the Greek words οίκω [okos], house, and νέμω [nemo], rules hence household management) is the social science that studies the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants. ... Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is a proposed economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the allocation of resources and consumption in a given society. ... Politics is the process by which decisions are made within groups. ... Participatory democracy is a broadly inclusive term for many kinds of consultative decision making which require consultation on important decisions by those who will carry out the decision. ... Parpolity or Participatory Politics is a theoritical political system proposed by Stephen R. Shalom, professor of political science at William Patterson University in New Jersey. ... The word culture, from the Latin colo, -ere, with its root meaning to cultivate, generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ... A family of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 1997 A family consists of a domestic group of people (or a number of domestic groups), typically affiliated by birth or marriage, or by comparable legal relationships — including domestic partnership, adoption, surname and (in some cases) ownership (as occurred in the Roman Empire). ... Feminists redirects here. ...

The term is used in management theory (as in "participatory management") to denote a style of management that calls for a high level of participation of workers and supervisors in decisions that affect their work. The term is also used in Participatory Economics or "parecon" as it is theorized and elaborated in that model. It has been suggested that Management system be merged into this article or section. ... Participatory management is the practice of empowering employees to participate in organizational decision making. ... Participatory economics, or parecon, a participatory economics system proposed as an alternative to other systems such as capitalism and coordinatorism, emerged from the work of the radical theorist Michael Albert and of the radical economist Robin Hahnel, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s. ...

For well-informed participation to occur, some version of transparency, e.g. radical transparency, is necessary, but not sufficient. It has been suggested in the participatory economics model that for full and meaningful participation to exist, some form of Balanced job complex is necessary: self-confidence, empowerment and information must be equitably distributed. In the physical sciences, specifically in optics, a transparent physical object is one that can be seen through. ... Radical transparency is a management method where nearly all decision making is carried out publicly. ... Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is a proposed economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the allocation of resources and consumption in a given society. ... A Balanced job complex is a collection of tasks within a given workplace that is balanced for its equity and empowerment implications against all other job complexes in that workplace. ...

Sherry Arnstein discusses types of participation and "nonparticipation" in A Ladder of Citizen Participation (1969). She grades levels of participation from Manipulation (least citizen participation) to Citizen Control (most citizen participation). The three (3) categories used are:

Degrees of Citizen Power

• Citizen Control
• Delegated Power
• Partnership

Degrees of Tokenism

• Placation
• Consultation
• Informing

Nonparticipation

• Therapy
• Manipulation

Arnstein continues to define citizen participation as "the redistribution of power that enables the havenot citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future".

The complete original text of Arnstein, dating from 1969, but still very valid can be found on http://lithgow-schmidt.dk/sherry-arnstein/ladder-of-citizen-participation.html

Multiple other "ladders" of participation have been presented, most notably Connor's "A new ladder of citizen participation" (1988), Wiedemann and Femers' "Public Participation in waste management decision making: analysis and management of conflicts" (1993) and Dorcey et al. "Public Involvement in government decision making: choosing the right model" (1994).

See also

• e-Participation
• Consensus decision-making
• Decision making
• Direct democracy
• Election
• Initiative
• Participatory democracy
• Participatory economics
• Participatory Economics Book Page (Participatory Decision Making)
• participatory management
• Referendum
• Community-led total sanitation
• Orangi Pilot Project