Abstract

Within the context of western democracies, the spread of participatory practices in the 1990s seems to have been characterised by two interesting paradoxes: i) while researchers try to identify how participation may play a complementary role in the decision making process of representative democracy, the latter regime appears to have been overtaken by forms of post-democracy; ii) participatory practices are spreading but their impact on public policies is weak. The central questions are: what are the reasons for the spread of participation? If participation doesn't modify public policies, what is its main function? Moving from an ideal-type of neo-liberalist policy the article sustains the hypothesis that, as a result of its technicalisation and institutionalization, participation is a useful resource for stabilizing «temperate neoliberalist» policies.