INTRODUCTION

The central argument of this chapter is that in the deliberative and associational model of democracy, secondary associations should be democratised in order to ensure that they have an internal democratic structure whereby all the members of the association participate in the decisions made in that association: ‘The democratic associational model of voluntary organisations assumes that members should not only be expected, but actively encouraged to participate in the running of the organisations’ (Lansley, cited in Powell and Guerin 1997: 166; see also Perczynski 2000; Fung 2003a). As already discussed, there are many forms of participation, and several ways decisions can be made democratically. The case was made in Chapter 2, that deliberative democracy was the model of decision-making most suitable for cultivating autonomy, which was established as the normative core of democracy in Chapter 1. Consequently, this chapter makes the stronger claim that associations should engage their members in deliberatively democratic decision-making (Young 1990: 91; Elstub 2006b).

Chapter 3 established that associations can fulfil many functions that contribute to the institutionalisation of deliberative democracy and to the cultivation of citizens' autonomy. However, if associations are to fulfil these functions effectively, then the internal structure of the associations must be democratic and based upon the norms of deliberative democracy. If associations are to be venues for subsidiarity and offer scope for more small-scale participation, then they must allow participation and therefore democratise their decision-making structures.