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‪The future of the participatory imperative is articulated in a context of increasing entanglement between participation and communication and in a process of increasing mediatization of social relations. In this context, where communication and participation come to pursue the same objectives, practices are co-constructed on the basis of references to the imaginaries of participation and communication, which leads to confusion. The intertwining of participation and communication, the predominance of the technical character of participatory mechanisms, their unclear or utilitarian objectives undermine the confidence that citizens have in participation itself, even though its ideal objectives aim at the opposite effect. The participatory imperative therefore seems to need to be reinvented in a more authentic and deliberative way.‪