Toward a Unified Conceptual Framework for Participation Research
Public participation has gained renewed interest amid the recent crises confronting Western democracies, yet scholarly consensus on its fundamental premises remains limited. This theoretical study reconceptualizes participation as a multidimensional communicative phenomenon by identifying its core dimensions, examining the tensions among competing theoretical traditions, and developing a unifying content-agnostic analytical framework. It contributes to participation research and communication theory in three principal ways: by mapping four paradigmatic approaches to participation; by identifying conceptual bridges that integrate these otherwise fragmented traditions; and by proposing a classificatory framework grounded in the concepts of autonomy and heteronomy. Organized around the intersecting dimensions of power asymmetries and institutionalization, the framework distinguishes four typical modes of participation and enables multidimensional comparison across diverse participatory manifestations and sociocultural settings. By moving beyond hierarchical models, disciplinary compartmentalization, and purely normative classifications, it provides a common analytical language for comparing heterogeneous participatory processes.