Grassroots democracy

is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as practical is shifted to the organization's lowest geographic level of organization.[clarify] To cite a specific hypothetical example, a national grassroots organization, such as an NGO, would place as much decision-making power as possible in the hands of a local chapter instead of the head office.

The principle is that for democratic power to be best exercised it must be vested in a local community instead of isolated, atomized individuals. As such, grassroots organizations exist in contrast to so-called participatory systems, which tend to allow individuals equal access to decision-making irrespective of their standing in a local community, or which particular community they reside in. As well, grassroots systems also differ from representative systems that allow local communities or national member-ships to elect representatives who then go on to make decisions.

The difference between the three systems comes down to where they rest on two different axes: the rootedness in a community (i.e. grassroots versus national or international); and the ability of self-appointed individuals to participate in the decision-making process (i.e. participatory versus representative.) Many anarchists advocate all decision-making made by grassroots democracy as opposed to the state with agreements between communities made by voluntary federations. In a number of countries mass movements have been built on this basis, for example From Wikipedia