Trajectories of Change and Co-optation towards a Bourdieusian Field Theory of Participatory Governance

This paper uses Bourdieuisian field theory to examine the evolution of political participation, primarily in Europe and the West, since the latter half of the 20th century, leading up to the development of a new sub-field of institutionalised participation, often referred to as “democratic innovation”, arising with neoliberalism. Whilst these processes often originate in radical and politics, they have often deradicalized as they are institutionalised. So, what remains of their democratic potential? Through a reconstruction of the history of political participation in the social democratic and neoliberal eras, the paper shows that as new practices expand co-optative pressures increase. To account for this, I argue that social structure exerts a field force that intensifies as participatory practices come closer to the “field of power”, with generally deradicalizing effect. However, the field of political participation retains possibilities for change through (a) ongoing field struggles over field specific symbolic capital, and (b) the development of counter-hegemonic practices which is especially prominent in local fields, because they are further from the field of power. Moreover, co-optation does not necessarily mean tokenism. Rather, co-opting institutions need to make changes in form to make co-optation effective. Thus, in non-revolutionary moments, change occurs through a circuit consisting in the co-optation and renewal of practices. Finally, the concept of participatory capital is developed to explain how the field of participation evolves in struggles between actors advocating different participatory ethics. The study concludes that while the increased structural power of capital in neoliberalism constraints the field of participation to a greater extent than in social democracy, it remains a contested space, where possibilities for democratization remain.