The goal of economic development is to increase growth and eliminate poverty. Recently, the goal has been broadened to include promoting participatory governance. Participation is desirable as an end in itself, as a means of sharing resources, control, and responsibility within the social group. Yet participation is not always related to democracy. Fascism was a participatory, grassroots political movement.
Participation is as much a problem as it is a solution, as much a goal as a tool.
It is a problem when it is disorderly and if it is assumed to be a substitute for democratic representation. It is a solution when it changes conflict into negotiated losses. The recent literature on the effectiveness of foreign aid to developing countries presents an interesting analogy. Most foreign aid is useless. The only part that really helps development is that which follows rather than precedes policy change.