Electoral participation allows citizens to elect their representatives.
From the Latin participatĭo , participation is the action and effect of participating (taking or receiving part of something, sharing, reporting). The term can be used to name the ability of citizens to get involved in the political decisions of a country or region.
In this sense, we can talk about citizen participation through elections, referendums or plebiscites. The most common method of participation is voting every certain amount of time to choose the representatives of the people. This is known as representative democracy (the people elect the members of the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch ).
Beyond electoral participation , citizen participation in politics can be achieved through other mechanisms, such as action in non-governmental organizations or public demonstrations. For example: “We need people's participation to block this authoritarian government project,” “The plebiscite had massive participation from the city.”
The concept in finance
Participation is also the part that a person or a group owns in the capital of a business : “The Russian tycoon has just acquired a minority stake in the telecommunications group,” “Telefónica decided to sell its stake in the Italian operator due to the increase of his liabilities” , “A young Englishman invested his savings in the purchase of a stake in the club of his loves” .
Within this commercial area, we should highlight the existence of what is known as a participation account , which means that some merchants are concerned about the operations of others without having established any type of formal contract between them.
Demonstrations and marches are a form of citizen participation.
The preferred shares
In the same way, we would have to refer to, for example, so-called preferred shares . These are characterized by being an asset that has a high financial risk, which means that thanks to them numerous benefits can be achieved but also that everything invested is lost.
In recent years, these shares have become protagonists of Spain's financial news and various banking entities in the country have not hesitated to sell them to their clients without properly explaining to them what risk they entailed and that what they were signing was almost a loss. secure of your assets.
For this reason, they have filed complaints against the banks and savings banks that have carried out this scam and many of these lawsuits are still waiting to be judged before the pertinent authority. However, in other places financial institutions have returned all the money to clients who bet on preferred shares.
An invitation and a part of a lottery ticket
Participation is, on the other hand, a notice or part that is given to someone : “Did you know that Claudia is getting married? Yesterday I received the participation” , “Don't worry, I'm going to send you a participation” .
However, we must not forget that the part that is played of a lottery number is also known by the name participation. Thus, for example, in many cases there are tickets and then there are shares, which cost less than the tickets and are a part of them. Hence, if the prize is won, whoever has a complete ticket will get a greater amount than the one who had a participation.