procedural democracy

{{Short description|Type of governing system centering voting}}

{{Democracy}}

{{otheruses|Procedural (disambiguation){{!}}Procedural}}

{{redirect|proceduralism|the ideology favoring "producers"|Producerism}}

Procedural democracy or proceduralist democracy, proceduralism or hollow democracyTom Forrest, "A Hollow Democracy: Civil Rule, 1979–1983", in A Hollow Democracy: Civil Rule, 1979–1983, Taylor & Francis, 1996. is a term used to denote the particular procedures, such as regular elections based on universal suffrage, that produce an electorally-legitimated government.{{Cite web|last=Saikal|first=Amin|title=Democracy and Democratization|url=https://pesd.princeton.edu/node/251|access-date=10 July 2020|website=Encyclopedia Princetoniensis|publisher=Princeton University}}{{Cite web|last=Kaldor|first=Mary|date=27 May 2014|title=Democracy in Europe after the Elections|url=https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/eurocrisispress/2014/05/27/democracy-in-europe-after-the-elections/|access-date=10 July 2020|website=Euro Crisis in the Press|publisher=London School of Economics}}{{cite journal |last1=Saffon |first1=Maria Paula |last2=Urbinati |first2=Nadia |title=Procedural Democracy, the Bulwark of Equal Liberty |journal=Political Theory |date=1 June 2013 |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=441–481 |doi=10.1177/0090591713476872 |s2cid=15338422 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0090591713476872 |access-date=28 August 2021 |language=en |issn=0090-5917|url-access=subscription }} Procedural democracy, with its centering of electoral processes as the basis of democratic legitimacy, is often contrasted with substantive or participatory democracy, which centers the equal participation of all groups in society in the political process as the basis of legitimacy.{{Cite web|last=Sarajlic|first=Eldar|date=18 February 2014|title=The perils of procedural democracy: a lesson from Bosnia|url=https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/perils-of-procedural-democracy-lesson-from-bosnia/|access-date=10 July 2020|website=openDemocracy}}

The term is often used to denote an artificial appearance of democracy through the existence of democratic procedures like elections when in reality power is held by a small group of elites who manipulate democratic processes to make themselves appear democratically legitimate.{{Cite journal|last=Kok Wah Loh|first=Francis|date=29 February 2008|title=Procedural democracy, participatory democracy and regional networking: the multi-terrain struggle for democracy in Southeast Asia|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14649370701789740?journalCode=riac20|journal=Inter-Asia Cultural Studies|volume=9|pages=127–141|doi=10.1080/14649370701789740|s2cid=154965387|via=Taylor & Francis Online|url-access=subscription}}