In practice, political context suffuses participation. Outcomes of supposedly participative processes are frequently dominated by those individuals who are themselves powerful through position, knowledge, etc. or who are representatives of powerful groups or who, more prosaically, have the power of being publicly articulate. Particular mention can also be made of the role of external facilitators and their powerful ability to steer apparently participative processes and to shape decision outcomes. Skewed participation . Inequality may arise even before participation itself has begun in the way that representatives are selected to participate in participation .
Membership is often skewed towards the powerful and away from the marginalised.
This happens both through nomination and self-selection of members. It can, for instance, bias IS participation towards managerial secondary users and away from clerical primary users. Non-communicative participation . Participative groups and processes tend to reproduce their political and cultural context. One consequence is the inability of representatives from different stakeholder groupings to empathise and communicate with each other.