Why Being Heard Does Not Necessarily Mean Having Influence
Developed by Tharini Rouwette · Operationalised through Allies in Colour · January 2026
Participation–Power Gap
The Participation–Power Gap (PPG) was developed by Tharini Rouwette as an analytical framework examining the structural disconnect between participation in civic and political life and access to formal institutional decision-making power.
This paper is the first of two. The Participation–Power Gap asks why being invited to participate so rarely translates into having real influence over the decisions that invitation is meant to inform, and thus proposes a framework for understanding the distance between the two.
The companion paper, Civic Capability Infrastructure (CCI), is the design response: what would actually need to be built for participation to become capable, continuous and consequential.
PPG diagnoses the gap. CCI designs the infrastructure to narrow it.
Related formulations of “power–participation gap” have appeared in earlier scholarship in other contexts. Rouwette’s contribution is the specific formulation, definition and application of the Participation–Power Gap to the relationship between multicultural participation, representation and institutional power, particularly in the Australian context.
The PPG forms part of Rouwette’s broader body of work examining the relationship between participation, capability, representation and institutional influence.
Citation:
Rouwette, T. Participation–Power Gap: An analytical framework for participation and institutional power.
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