Centuries ago, the most common way for a king or emperor to gain political legitimacy was to associate himself with the prevailing religious ideology of his polis. Commonly held notions of the Divine led emperors to rule in the name of God. But gradually, this way of gaining power and legitimacy faded away, and rulers had to rule in the name of the people, rather than in the name of God. Later, the idea that the government of a polis must be "of" the people; “for” the people and “for” the people emerged from that historical transition. But the question was: how is a government of the people, and only the people, possible in a state (or polis)? Aren't the people in a polis disorderly, rivalrous, and chaotic, thus precluding effective governance? Isn't it true that at the time this discourse emerged, the so-called irrational barbarians who wanted to rebel and take over the state could have caused disorder and anarchy if they had had the right to govern? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Since we are talking about an age of reason, it is necessary to answer such questions through rational propositions. There were arguments for a social contract, proposals to "civilize" the "barbarians" through despotism before granting them the freedom to be part of the government. In short, the goal was to limit the power of the people to maintain social order, while maintaining government of, for, and by the people. Once the idea of ​​liberal democracy prevailed, the question was: how could the people participate politically in the government of the polis? This question brings us to the current voting system. But is this mode of participation important? Rational choice theorists responded negatively, arguing that an individual's vote may not have much impact on achieving his or her goal, so consuming resources to that end counts as a loss. But this essay argues not only that political participation is important for people in a democratic polis, but also the reasons and extent of political participation that play a crucial role in democracy and the ways and platforms through which people's political participation can materialize. Political participation is important to citizens in many ways, and there are different perspectives to describe this importance. Rational theorists Downs and Olson downplayed the role of political participation by arguing that a tiny probability of impact caused by a vote implies that it is not rational to vote and if the shared goal is to achieve a collective good then it is rational to free ride. rather than consuming time, money and effort to obtain it. But despite these theories, people continued to vote and participate politically, challenging the premises of Downs and Olson. This disparity between theory and empirical reality indicates that there is a discrepancy in how rational theorists perceive the rewards of voting and campaigning. Schlozman, Verba, and Brady, in their research article, state that the fact that there are no material or tangible rewards or gratifications for political activity implies that there must be other types of rewards and fruits resulting from participation in political activism. Some rewards can take social forms, such as interacting with new people and building relationships with each other, the sense of satisfaction in being part of civic causes, or influencing policies. So these rewards can be expressions of empathy, satisfaction, socialization. Thus political activities may not necessarily be an instrumental means to an end, but an end in and ofif. Therefore, the incentive to participate politically remains, despite a vague predictability of goal achievement. Therefore, the importance of political participation may not be universalized; however, different individuals may perceive its importance differently. There may be many reasons and motivations that drive people to participate politically in a polis. In their research, Schlozman, Verba, and Brady collect data from various political activists to learn about their reasons, motivations, or incentives to participate. They describe the term political participation with the following codes: voting, campaign work, campaign contribution, contact, protest, local council membership, informal community activity, organizational involvement and church activity. They use James Q. Wilson's typologies to describe the incentives or reasons to participate politically – considering Wilson's four types of incentives: selective material benefits, social rewards, civic rewards, and the desire to have an impact on collective politics. Under selective material benefits, researchers collected data mentioning people's career priorities, the progress of personal client endeavors with officials, personal desires for a political career, and other types of networking for material (career) benefits. Under the typology: social rewards, some reasons for participating politically were social relationships, the chance to meet important or influential people, gain recognition from respectable peers, peer pressure, excitement, and pleasure. Selective civic rewards included people's perception of citizenship duties, kindness towards hard-working colleagues, improvement of one's surroundings and one's country. The third typology: collective outcomes, included the possibility of influencing government policies, for which activists had very specific courses of actions and narratives for each policy. This case study shows that there may be different reasons why people participate politically in a polis. Political participation is possible through various platforms and one of these platforms is democratic institutions. Democracy, ideally, should not be limited to elections and voting, people's perspectives and their demand for transparency guarantees remain important even after elected officials hold office. There must be a right to information and transparency, a right to influence decisions through their narratives and to hold corrupt officials to account. In his case study on Latin America, Brian Wampler studies participatory budgeting at the municipal level of three Brazilian cities and describes people's political participation in terms of three types of responsibilities: vertical, social and horizontal. Vertical accountability connotes the direct participation of citizens in government, for example through elections. Horizontal accountability refers to acts of reporting in and around the office in the form of distributive authorities. Social responsibility points towards the pressures that civil society organizations exert on public office holders. In the case of participatory budgeting in three Brazilian cities, Wampler (2007, 86) uses three factors that represent these three forms of responsibility: the BP delegates' right to make decisions based on transparent information (vertical), mass mobilization and public debates ( social) and legal implementation (horizontal). Such an institutional setup, incorporating democratic decision-making processes and accountability mechanisms, can provide an excellent platform for political participation. There.