Bodziński-Guzik Bartłomiej, The ‘Theatrical’ in Public Participation: How Can Theatre Contribute to Citizens’ Engagement in Legislative Development?

This paper is devoted to the notion of public participation as a tool for legislative development. The author acknowledges the potential of theatrical methods, especially the proposal of Augusto Boal, the Legislative Theatre (hereinafter: ‘LT’), whereby the theatre is used to generate proposals for legislation, bringing additional value to the participation process. The LT is a point of reference, but the ensuing reflections refer to the realm of theatre and performance in a more general sense. The article focuses on the corelations between theatre and different relevant fields of social activity to determine and outline the potential benefits of deploying theatre in the process of participation. The aim is to present a preliminary overview of pertinent ideas that can encourage future reflection about theatricalizing participation oriented at legislative development, rather than a direct and comprehensive proposal.

The theme of this paper falls into the already acknowledged but still...