Inclusive organizations as agents of democracy

The difficulties that representative democracies are encountering have fostered experimentation of new ways to bring government closer to citizens. Among these, forms of participatory and associative democracy have been of interest. While the former have been mainly promoted both nationally and locally by public authorities, the latter depends on the will and initiative of citizens. The more the forms of associative democracy are able to respond to unmet needs, are autonomous from the public authorities, and guarantee a wide participation in decision-making processes, the greater their contribution to the democratic process. This is a situation that effectively seems to characterize many new associative forms. In fact, in the context of the general growth in number and importance of civil society organizations observed in recent decades, the most dynamic organizations have not been so much those asking for public policies, but rather those engaged in the stable and continuous provision of services and which have assumed inclusive and participatory forms of governance. In particular, these new associative forms provide for the multi-stakeholder access to the governing bodies of the organization, and, in regards to decision-making processes, they adopt practices that allow for a participatory and dialogic approach. In this chapter we propose a first reflection on why organizations like these can make an innovative contribution to the strengthening of democracy, as they are able to generate benefits not only for those who are directly affected by their activities, but also for the community as a whole, by creating a virtuous circle that can promote a change in people's preferences in favour of participation.