The World Bank - Working for a world free of poverty
"People, Spaces, Deliberation" was launched in 2008 by the Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) and is now published by the External Affairs Operational Communication of the World Bank. The blog is edited by Sina Odugbemi and Diana Chung.
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"Participation is, clearly, the proper avenue of approach to the study of public opinion, for, in various senses, public opinion is participating opinion. But the legitimation of participation rests on the older, broader, and more philosophical proposition that just governments are governments to which, in some sense, the subjects have given their consent. Like participation, consent is never perfect, and like it also there are variations in forms of consent. Since we can hardly say that nonexistent opinion can be public opinion, we can hardly say that a primitive and inarticulate acceptance of a governing order is really consent."
