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In the light of recent developments in democracies, particularly voter abstentionism, the concept of political competence needs to be broadened to allow for the diversity of skills and knowledge agents may possess or acquire to express their preferences in the public sphere. This article presents a pragmatic synthesis of some recent studies based on an expanded praxiological and processual analysis of the acquisition of civic competence.
This epistemological and theoretical approach is then illustrated by an ethnographic study of access to civic competence in a participatory budgeting organization, which underscores the malleability of the competence of agents placed in a favourable institutional setting. It therefore offers a model of politicization in interaction;
iterated participation results in the bifurcation of agents' trajectories – either towards more institutionalized civic engagement or increased cynicism about politics.
