Participatory Democracy is a collective decision making process that combines elements from both Direct and Representative Democracy. Citizens have the power to decide on policy and politicians assume the role of policy implementation. We will try to understand how Participatory Democracy operates, and we will study its characteristics and implications over the behavior of citizens and politicians and over the final policy outcomes, as well as, the implications of the use of more general mechanisms of direct democracy on electoral competition.

References:

A theory of Participatory Democracy based on the real case of Porto Alegre
(joint with Santiago Sanchez-Pages)
in the European Economic Review (2009) 53: 56-72.
http://aragones.iae-csic.org/PD-EER09.pdf

The disadvantage of winning an election
(joint with Santiago Sanchez-Pages)
http://aragones.iae-csic.org/PD-WP-05-07