Decolonise global participation

This project is led by a team of leading empirical social scientists who are committed to the development of new conceptual and participatory paradigms in political participation globally. In recent years, novel forms of political participation and the growing importance of the role that ‘civic epistemology’ plays in legitimising policy agendas and knowledge production have underlined the urgency for a truly transdisciplinary and non-Western centric approach to comprehending political participation. What is equally important, is foregrounding the ‘duality’ of some of the commonly-imagined enabling factors in political participation, such as the hopes and hype brought by technology and the slippery boundary between liberal and illiberal activism. This will help to develop a more realistic view of how inclusive and productive political participation can be cultivated.

The project consists of a meta-survey of key global movements since 2000, a Delphi survey of 100 academic and non-academic experts in both Global North and South countries, and establishing an interdisciplinary global forum. The activities supported by this grant will 1) assist the co-writing and publication of an inclusive participation-based edited volume, the Routledge Handbook of Global Political Participation; 2) Enable the delivery of a series of multi-lingual audience-specific ‘How to Benefit From’ guides on global participation which will be made freely available to the general public, activists, regulators and research institutions; 3) a lasting transnational dialogical platform for decolonising political participation.