I am researching on the influence of citizen participation on urban sustainable development and would welcome contributions on the subject.
Http://www.sdinet.org/
many examples of citizens and their organizations engaging local governments
Sebastian, thank you!
Undoubtedly, the question spans multiple paths and answers. However, here, I would like to read about the importance of direct participation of citizens in the creation of laws, in the fight against corruption, in the resolution of urban problems. Because, I believe that it is necessary to enable popular participation in all decision-making processes, so as to promote the effective institutionalization of procedures and the proper expansion of population-focused plots.
To start this dialogue, my goal was to reflect on the importance of popular participation in fighting the current crisis of representativeness of the Brazilian political model, with a focus on common citizen and on its possible intervention in local decision-making processes.
It depends on how you define democracy. In Barcelona Spain during the Late Gen Franco's dictatorship, there was great citizen participation in some local design decision even though the government was not democratic.
Look at:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&ved=0CFEQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miguelangelmartinez.net%2FIMG%2Fpdf%2FIJURR_PUBLICACION_ONLINE.pdf&ei=vTPhUqieFbLKsQTFg4DABA&usg=AFQjCNHLnyi63R0WEpGBzGn_uZONfXdvgg&sig2=eDZSyZ44Qiz9UDq47BtZxg&bvm=bv.59568121,d.cWc
http://juh.sagepub.com/content/26/6/793.full.pdf
Dear John:
For every rule, there will always be exceptions. And the exceptions often tend to be disastrous. But, if there are problems and the current answers are not providing the desired effect, then why not create facilities and laws so that those directly involved can help you find the right answers?
I think capacity building with the laws and facilities will make it work, without which, one can have nationals without having citizens, that is those who participate in processes that affect their lives.
Some possible answer to you question could be seen in my book just published and aviable on-line on: www.renewtown.eu/ This book concerns trans national strategy for the post-socialist cities , however some conclusion and case study could be useful for you. All the best. Grzegorz Weclawowicz
There are various kind of democracy of course, but some would say that the whole point of a representative form of democratic government is to avoid citizens having to be directly involved in every local decision. We elect representatives to do the mundane decision making for us. They set out the principles they would hope to apply and we elect them according to our agreement with those principles.
Grzegorz:
Thanks for the suggestion! I will read your book carefully.
Alan:
Why should we avoid citizens having to be directly involved in every local decision? I believe that participation should not be seen as a problem or as a solution. She's just another option. After all, it is necessary to have knowledge and have the right to choose to have an opinion.
Andrea, I am not making a normative statement. I am not saying that we should avoid it, just that historically in most societies people have chosen to pass on the responsibility for decision making to the management of their firm, or to the governors of their community. A utilitarian take on this would be that for most day to day decisions, including important ones, people judge that to delegate this to a small group of managers is an economically sensible thing to do. We end up with a division of labour where expertise is built up amongst decision takers that leads on average to better decisions being taken than would be the case if everyone were involved. There are all kinds of devils in the detail of course, but I cannot think of many social and political forms in which this specialisation did not take place fairly early on. Perhaps there is a good reason for this?
Alan:
"Historically" and "often" are relative things. For example: before to discover that the world was round, everyone believed that it was flat. And, in the past, a lot of good people died by disagree with that. But, I'm not here to argue, defend or fight. I would just like to learn about new practices and tools created to ensure the effective participation of society in democratic management of their city, protected by civil rights.
I think the point is that most democracies are very far from participative in decision making. The population participate in selecting the people to whom they delegate decision making. Democracy lends legitimacy to the right of government to make decisions on the people's behalf. Direct participation in decision making is a quite different thing. One area I am particularly interested in is the potential of new communication technologies to widen direct participation.
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Dear Andrea Araujo.
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I think there can be no true democracy without intense popular participation, but that participation should be taken extremely properly without using the flag of popular participation to strengthen party bureaucracies.
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In Brazil even had an attempt at participatory democracy in Porto Alegre, and this attempt reelected the same parties for 16 years (1989-2005) a total of four successive elections.
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Now is required following question: Why after 2005 the parties that possessed such a program called participatory democracy not over its candidates elected to the municipal executive?
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The current answer is that participatory democracy is impractical with time. However, analyzing the case of Porto Alegre carefully you see that what failed was not the idea of participatory democracy, but the practice and lack of depth of the network and take control of it by party bureaucracies.
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Early in the implementation of participatory democracy schemes in cities they are extremely efficient and popular, because the claims of the poorest urban infrastructure are population related to simple and small works in your surroundings.
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But the measure that evolves the process of participatory democracy there is a change in the quality of local leadership that with practice beginning to question the wider problems of the city. At this time there are two possible positions of the parties that govern the city, or miss more and more their power or attract leaderships emerging party cadres, turning them militants in party bureaucrats brought them their independence.
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The failure of the systems of participatory democracy is not in excess of this, but in the absence. With time running back to representative democracies schemes turning to the distancing of true popular aspirations.
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Soon will make a few comments on different response because many think are true urban legends created to justify calling representative democracy.
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A very good question.
In my own I argue that 'good' governance is best understood as being built around ‘participation as structure’ and ‘deliberation as process’, and that the more deliberative the interactions within a given context, the higher the quality of governance. The method of analysis is built upon a new arrangement of the accepted attributes of ‘good’ governance, using a set of qualitative principles, criteria and indicators, and applied to the structures and processes of governance. Recognising that contemporary institutional contexts are manifold, the analytical framework also locates the institutions typologically, determined by their source of authority (state/non-state), democratic mode (aggregative/deliberative) and degree of governance innovation (old/new). The research findings confirm that the more deliberative the model of democratic interaction, the better the systems’ quality of governance and by extension, the more legitimate the institutional context.
http://eprints.utas.edu.au/view/authors/Cadman,_T.html
Cadman:
Your argument is perfect. Thank you very much for your cooperation and the indication of the text. I promise to read it carefully.
Thanks,
Interestingly, 'democracy' functions at two levels:
1) It is important that dialogue occurs, and that this is deliberative (i.e. everyone gets to have their say), rather than aggregative (i.e. 'majority rules')
2) The 'mode' of democratic choice is also important, in a non-state context (i.e. people are not selecting a government, but engaging at the local level, e.g in a city). Here consensus rather than voting is more effective.
Tim
Tim:
You touched on a very important point: how to promote the involvement of people in local decisions?
As a few others have alluded to, I think this particular question hinges upon a definition, or conception, of democracy.
Where democracy is understood to be, or to be qualified by, the participation of citizen there is indeed something of a 'legitimation crisis' (Habermas 1975) when citizens do not participate. This idea of a democratic society is closest to many of our own conceptions of democracy I would assume.
However, some conceptions of democracy believe that it is best and only necessary if the participatory element of democracy is very limited (Constant 1819 as the most famous example). 'Representative democracy' idealises that through having the chance to vote once in a while, citizens have the democratic chance to elect their 'representatives' in government, who are to then spend their term making decisions and creating policy on behalf of the citizens, without involving or consulting them (see Urbinati 2006 for a really good discussion).
This latter conception of democracy would seem quite unappealing and dismissed by most of us, and indeed by most academics, as 'undemocratic' (Pitkin 2004), but it is actually the foundation upon which most modern democracies rest - indeed in Europe nearly all democracies are 'representative' democracies where constitutionally citizens have little formal democratic powers beyond their vote.
So I suppose my answer to your question Andrea is: depends who is asking!
PatricK:
Thank you for your reply. However, I am looking for something more...
Today, scattered by the two terrestrial hemispheres, several types of democratic governments are in different degrees of democracy, among the various levels of freedom and equality guaranteed by the State. These different governments have wide variations in historical terms, structural, political culture, respect for laws and regulations, scales of management, planning, degrees of institutionalization, levels of decision-making power, confidence coefficients…. However, over time, a property in common entitles them “democratic”: the elementary principle of the participation. In addition, it is about this elementary principle that I want to learn.
I already know that since ROUSSEAU (1762), SANTOS (2002) ─ passing by KELSEN (1934), SCHUMPETER (1942), HABERMAS (1962), DAHL (1971), MACPHERSON (1978), PATERMAN (1992) and DEMO (1996), among many others –, the concepts of democracy and participation are interlace. Moreover, I know that the concept of democracy, long ago evaluated as non-separable of the concept of direct participation and inverse to the one of representation, assumed a new meant and if it made present more in the current world.
Therefore, to each day, it grows the need to promote the interaction between society and the State; to create new instruments that can meet the demands of society more efficiently and effectively more efficiently and effectively; to divide the power and prestige of the citizens. Because, as Peter Demo (1996) said: “there is no democracy without its lead actor, who is the citizen.” In addition, the principle of democratic participation exists as the basis of popular sovereignty and is implicit in the constitutional system of several countries.
In addition for everything that has been said, limiting the “depends on who is asking”, unfortunately, is not a valid response for me.
Andrea,
Of course, I did not really intend for my answer to be the answer to your question. I was perhaps trying to say that before you even go about answering this question, there are assumptions which you must first engage with and qualify which will set you down the path nicely to argue for mass participation.
Other contributors, and yourself, on this thread have already provided very good arguments for this, I was merely suggesting that before you get to making these answers you should first justify that even the conception of democracy itself should involve mass citizen participation, and thus then how the city must have mass participation in order to be a democracy. This I think will make your argument stronger?
Inglês:
Thanks for your answers. I apologize for not being able to make me understand. The problem here is definitely not your answer. Probably is my question. The fact is that I am writing on a network of researchers and, for this reason, I thought that I could jump the basic one and go direct to the subject. In the truth, it does not lack arguments to me for the question, lacks arguments to me for the reply. You were not the first one to insist that the Democracy is the key for the question. However, I insist that the question here is about “participation”. That is, the question goes beyond all the possible theories on democracy. The focus is the participation of the citizens of any city, in any democracy. The question is about a hypothesis, something close to the imaginary ideal of any citizen. Only then, I would make the question: How can there be democracy in a city where citizens do not engage with local decisions?
Yes I certainly see more clearly now what you are looking for with this question. It is an interesting way you wish to go about the problem - to say participation is before and must be before conceptions of democracy. If indeed you can strongly argue that there is no need even to consider whatdemocraxy should be like in this sense without even addressing arguments about the assumptions of democracy, you will have a very strong argument.
Am I right in thinking then that your question, or at least a portion of it, will be looking to argue that it is not simply that participation 'ought' to be a fundamental component of democracy, but that it just simply by nature 'is'?
When I was a child in the 1960's my parents moved to Bolivia to work in technical assistance, helping local farmers improve their farming methods. Bolivia has a very particular history, including a strong pre-Columbian tradition mixed with the Spanish grant of land and people to an aristocracy of 'haciendas'. Then in 1953 there was the Reforma Agraria in which land was taken away from the landlords and granted to the peasantry (campesinos). For a long time change of Government in Bolivia was characterised by an incessant series of revolutions. There seemed to be two power bases. The miners who worked under terrible conditions at high altitude, and the campesinos who had become a new small scale land owning class. A revolution involved men with machine guns and sticks of dynamite in the back of lorries either coming down from the mines, or farmers coming in from the lower rural areas. The president and ministers were usually on a foreign mission at the time and the hand over of power was relatively swift and seemed to involve little in the way of bloodshed. The ideology would swing from left to right and back again at each revolution. The leading families seemed to have one or another brother or cousin in any of the available political parties, and so managed to secure their interests through regime change.
Now the point of my story is that participation and direct action by the citizenry does not mean democracy as such. I think that for democracy you also need the rule of law.
Alas thus immediately a problem is highlighted with arguing that mass citizen participation is a priori to democracy- the above case would lead us to limit what kind of participation we want en masse from citizens in order for democracy to function, would it not? So then we are talking about participation in the light of, or the scope of, democracy, and not before it. Which seems to me to make us have to once again justify that mass citizen participation ought to be a part of democracy? It does seem quite unavoidable that to talk of how a democracy is failing because there is no mass participation of citizens, we must first argue that a) it 'should' be, and b) that the nature of this participation which is desirable (in the context of a proper, functioning democracy, which is what we are trying to argue for) needs to actually be defined and controlled as such.
Unless of course you can argue that such revolutions and coups as Alan talks of are not part of democracy, or participation in it, and this an entirely separate entity to the discussion at hand? However, in light of Alan's response I am inclined to think again once more Andrea that it is impossible to speak of mass participation without order talking about democracy, and discussing first that we need mass participation for Tito work, but also that there must perhaps be a rule of law to control precisely what this participation is? Both of these require us to first conceive democracy and what it should look like before discussing participation, which I think was my original point in my first response.
Excuse the mistake in the second paragraph, that should read - "without first talking about democracy"
What is democracy in the Africa context? From my own perspective the local people are not allowed to participate in decision making in their own locality, they are just a number to use as tool in election purposes, but once the political elite emerge in an election, the role of the people to participate as ended. Until the next election the general people of that locality are not involved in any away. they were not meant to participate politically but to be an onlooker in their own affairs, once foodstuff and some cash has been distributed to the hungry masses to mobilise them to support them during election.
And we are suppose to be practicing democracy. Hungry masses cant play politics or be interested in their own affairs, for there interest has been truncated, for they have been denied economically, socially and otherwise, democracy is meant to be government of the people for the people and by the people, but this is not applicable in most of African democracies
Adenuga:
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you.
And the worst is that there are many countries that call themselves democratic, but actually just call themselves so.
I think we have to look at history when we discuss these kind of things. All things considered the UK is probably a fairly functional 'democracy' on a world scale, but it has taken the best part of 800 years, civil and world wars, revolutions and leaders being beheaded, and many stages of development to arrive at where it is today. For much of that period the kind of thing you describe in Africa, or worse, was the norm. Even today some of the problems of democracy are evident. We have just had local and European Parliament elections and the worst face of nationalist and racist populism have done very well out of the democratic process.
For me there is a fundamental problem. This comes down to education in something like 'global citizenship'. Unless the electorate are properly educated and understand and respect cultural difference around the world then democracy will lead to ethically and morally wrong decisions. Xenophobia and various kinds of fundamentalism given the openness of a fully democratic process can win, over the ethical and morally correct decision. I suspect that there is a lawfulness to this. In Durkheimian terms democracy is a mechanical social process - all votes are equal . The result is that if it is unregulated then democracy can lead to populist outcomes in which minority groups can suffer. In order to counter this historically advanced democratic systems balance participation with a rule or law. In the UK this is institutionalised by a separation of state from judiciary and maintaining a balance of power. This is however continually renegotiated through changes in the balance. The real trick being to ensure that no single interest ever gains an upper hand for too long. Each power base tends to try to reinforce its position so maintaing the balance is a very difficult thing.
Before Bolivia I lived in Tanzania. Here in the 1960s Julius Neyrere tried to institute a system of village level democracy or 'uhuru' - it never worked because a balance of power could not be achieved at village level. At this very small local scale it is only possible for majority rule to work, and even though Neyrere stressed the importance of respecting the rights of all to debate, he eventually had to allow that decisions be made on the basis of the majority wish. This led to nationalism and xenophobia and a thirty year interruption of social and economic development.
Dear Penn:
As has been said: "Democracy is a process that is constantly evolving."
But nothing prevents each stage of society, according to its structure and its needs, new models of political participation are developed.
So, I hope you continue to tell a bit more about your 'travels around the world' and so rewarding illustrate how this theme called Democratic Participation.
Is citizen engagement a good thing? Theoretically, if every citizen was highly educated on the various issues, yes; but the reality is that in most locales, most people are not educated on the issues nor do they want to be. As someone who worked for local government, I saw too many citizens base support or opposition to an action on emotion or purely selfish reasons. For example, take road widening projects. While the project may have a positive net benefit for the locale, there will be opposition from a vocal group that don't want more traffic, etc., who will do their best to kill the project, neither knowing nor caring about the net benefit. Traffic signal installations tend to be extreme examples, where unwarranted signals are installed at an expense to all because someone was killed at a particular intersection.
With respect to sustainable development, at least here in the United States it is a controversial concept, with many viewing it as government intrusion on individual rights. This is a classic example of which is better: a disengaged electorate that by their disengagement allows the implementation of ideas that work for the betterment of the community, or a completely engaged electorate that does not permit such ideas and prefers either a status quo or a return to outdated ideas?
One issue here is about access to knowledge. At the risk of oversimplifying, I think there are two kinds of knowledge which are particularly relevant. 'Knowledge of precedent', often encapsulated as scientific knowledge or professional experience. This is the kind of knowledge you gain by having done it before and made mistakes, by having studied and developed a theoretical framework etc. It tends to be held by 'professionals' such as consultants and local government executive officers. The second kind of knowledge is 'local knowledge'. This is often complex and gained by people on the ground who have seen and know an area and how it is used over many years. They know that the map may be incorrect, or when the wind blows from a certain direction that something particular happens, or that this part of the square is used by the kids in summer for kite flying, or whatever. No amount of professional knowledge can make up for lack of local knowledge, just as without experience of having tried new things elsewhere, of having made mistakes and gained scientific understanding, local knowledge alone is unlikely to be adequate to avoid making errors.
Now, in democracy we pass the responsibility for making decisions to our elected representatives. This avoids the transaction costs involved in everyone having a direct say in every issue. It makes decision taking manageable, but at the same time it removes local knowledge from the system and tends to place greater power in the hands of the professionals and the executive. This is the conundrum.
Schrader:
Thank you for sharing with us some of your work experience.
Alan:
Undoubtedly, this is a dilemma that deserves to be analyzed.
Thank you!
How central is citizen participation for the development of a city, and for creating better quality of life?
Is participation / citizen engagement a product or a requisite for social development?
I would like to explore this line of thought as it seems that in developing countries participation in selfhelp activities is essential for local development. While in advanced countries citizens are able to use their time for leisure activities, in developing countries we expect citizens to participate in local processes even if this means sacrifice and effort on their part.
Do you have the same impression?
Iragorri:
Pardon me, but I do not understand your proposal.
For me, citizen participation is a right for all. Soon, the 'sacrifice' does not exist. What there is 'right to choose'. This is something that can not be imposed by Government or by individual interests. Something that involves the 'collective good' and the future of every human being. Something that requires understanding of human, political and social rights. Something that can not be treated as 'product' or fad.
Andréa:
What I mean is that in developed societies, social development and public investments are part of the reality of citizens; most of the basic needs are covered as a result of private, public and government action through time. In general, people have services, rights and ways to exercise them. In developing societies, citizen engagement is sometimes, the only resource they have to force the state to solve social problems. The degree of self-help groups in higher as their action is crucial for their collective wellbeing.
I agree that participation is a right, and as such you should decide whether or not to exercise it. I have the sense that in the literature of political participation, there is a degree of critique when citizens do not get involved in community and political activities. If it is their right, why are we questioning them when participation is low?
In some communities of developing countries people have less time or resources to participate as they are dealing with survival issues as getting food for the day. This is why it seems that citizen engagement should be higher when social development is present, and not the other way around.
Hope I was able to clarify my argument. Thanks for your response. Keep them coming...
Alexandra
Alexandra:
Thanks for the answer !
And as you showed interest in the subject, follow the link on the search indexes democracy worldwide (2012).
According to studies by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ─ English The Economist Group company providing forecasting and counseling through research and analysis, management risk, economics etc services. ─ there is a close correlation between participation rates and indices democracy. This statement stems from diagnoses where democratic legitimacy is directly connected, with few exceptions, the high rates of social participation in decisions in favor of the collective. That is, countries with developed democracies and consolidated, usually have high rates of participation (usually above 70) in comparison with other established democracies.
A good read for you!
Andréa
http://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=DemocracyIndex12
Andréa,
Thanks for the information. The EIU Index of democracy uses political culture and participation as part of its concept. It is interesting to explore cases like Uruguay and Belgium that have low/medium levels of political participation, (4.44) around 7.5 /10 on political culture and high levels of overall democracy (8.17). Which indicates that in some context it could be possible to have a strong or full democracy with no so active citizens. The questions is if there are other factors that generate this outcome i.e. socioeconomic aspects?
Alexandra:
I think you have a related socio-economic aspects that is very valid theory. Including, I believe this to be a common speech today. But I want out of the ordinary. I want to talk about something more subjective. Something as important. Would you and understand?
How can there be democracy in a city where citizens do not engage with local decisions?
If citizens are not engaged both appropriately and successfully, then participation/engagement has failed and so has democracy.
Public participation is essentially a form of deliberative democracy in practice. Democracy, and thus public participation, can both fail, and in different ways. Citizens should, where the local decision in question is relevant (council, planning, development, government etc) to a community, be involved in the entire process from the start until the implementation stage.
In some instances it is reasonable to provide only information (for example, a council sending out pamphlets about a new rubbish bin collection system). So here is where democracy can be successful, yet citizens were not engaged with the decision that has been made.
The simplest answer is that if citizens are not engaged properly, then democracy has failed.
Rollas:
Perfect!
The concept of democracy, formerly reported as inseparable from the concept of direct and inverse representation to participation took on a new meaning and became more present in the world today. He now accepts indicative standards of who can and / or by what means the 'elect' can manage, plan, decide and govern.
The fundamental differences between an 'authentic participation' and a 'mock participation' passed on to the fact that the authentic enable the sharing of power, and institutional conditions for the creation of spaces for social mobilization and articulation, from an open methodology and malleable meet the demands and sociocultural diversity found. While in simulated, the methodology is defined a priori and participation is conditional on predetermined objectives.
I agree with most of what has been said; although its troublesome that around the world there are many 'democracies' that are based more on 'mock participation' than on real or 'authentic' participation.
This is why saying that 'if citizens are not engaged properly, then democracy has failed' is too extreme for me. The concept of 'flawed' democracy is less extreme as it values the existence of elections, government functioning, participation, political culture and liberties. Participation should not be the main determinant to evaluate democracy.
Iragorri:
That's where the 'X' of the matter: I'm not interested in evaluating democracy. I want to examine is the participation.
Thanks for the reply!
Hi Andrea!
I have not read all the replies yet but have you looked into participatory action research? It is exactly what you are interested in and is an approach I use in my current work. The idea is to involve citizens as co-researchers with shared opinions and insight. I feel that is where many community development projects fall short. "Experts" feel that they know what is best for sustainable development and it turns out that many citizens do not support it. How can that be sustainable? More, there is no democratic process in that; more along the lines of a dictatorship! Great question!
Scott
This question is key to the development of society. I dont know anyone having an absolute answer for this. Knowing what to do would solve many of our problems. But there are many other questions related to this one. The first is why citizens do not engage in activities that are so important for themselves? This fact is so incredible and disturbing at the same time. I think that there are many reasons for this but I can point here two of them. First, citizens believe so much that the people in charge are competent and that the issues are too complex for their knowledge, that they dont mind having other people making the decisions for them. I think that these people made wrong assumptions about the way society works. Another reason is that so many people life in such social and economic difficulties that they simply dont have time or energy to think in nothing besides their own problems and survival.
Now taking for granted that people dont participate in nothing except voting in the local goverment, can we say that we live in a democracy? I think that the issue is even deeper that this. Most people dont even have access to the decisions that are made or being made in their region. But let us take for granted for a second that people know what is happening. What can our democratic system let them do to change any decision? Participate in public hearings? Express his opinion in the press? Send a letter to the municipality? Try to talk with some politic person or somebody with influence? Knowing how local power works, none of these possibilities would work unless it is some kind of unavoidable scandal that could make the local governants think that they could lose votes in the next election.
So what are we talking about when we say that "citizens do not engage in local decisions"? Can they even do something? Only in rare cases in my opinion, but even so, success is not granted. So in our democratic system, the only way people can do something is by voting in the candidate or party with wich they agree more. But lets be honest, politicians are famous for being good liers and for not fulfilling the promisses and proposals the make during their campain. And most people is "ok" with this saying something like "this is politics".
So my answer to your question is some questions. Would it be better if people would vote for each individual decision? Can people vote democratically to chage the way our democracy works? Do we even live in a democracy?
Barbosa:
Wow! And that answer ... what questions ...
Well, let's parties. First, the current density does not allow all questions to be decided by all and individually. But ... Second, yes, change can and should occur. And lastly, yes, we live in an unfinished democracy and changeable.
Thanks for your participation!
Andréa, within the particulars of the historical Brazilian context, it might interesting to examine some of the influences of "democratic" action (if by that you are concerned with the community action possibilities of low-income communities) from regime to regime (populist, authoritarian, etc). The gnawing question of levels or degrees of participation might be traced by the changing options (to press for issues of importance at different times, or to defend rights - such as land tenure permanence). The issue is whether a community possesses political power to win government goods, or whether at times authorities make concessions based on their own political agenda and priorities. This is an empirical question. I invite you to check out the abstract of my recent book that deals with these questions: "Rights of Way to Brasília Teimosa: The Politics of Squatter Settlement." (Sussex Academic Press, 2014). You can find further information on Google and other sites as well as a London School of Economics book review: blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2014/06/20/book-review
Fortin:
I appreciate your statement.
Surely, this is one worth reading.
Thank you!
Dear Ivo:
Thank you for reading statement!
Books like this are always welcome.
Best Regards,
Andréa
Power monitoring and controlling bodies, such as citizen assemblies, public inquiries and human rights organisations, help to ensure the accountability of governmental power throughout the entire social and political landscape. The importance of traditional democratic structures does not decline, but their pivotal position in politics is changing due to scrutiny and contestation from external influences
https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=63&ved=0CCgQFjACODxqFQoTCOuCndfU9ccCFYY2Ggod1BkPiA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jedem.org%2Farticle%2Fview%2F221%2F182&usg=AFQjCNELgH7wE1Fc6zn1lOmcnFtfGBCEsg&cad=rja
Yes, dear @Fateh,
It's a very interesting link..
Best regards for all.
Transnational and global pressures have challenged nation-states as citizenship regimes, nation-states have also faced internal challenges. The increasing importance of ‘sub-politics,’ includes ongoing political participation through social movements and interest groups as vehicles for social change, rather than engaging representative democracy through party politics
http://howardramos.ca/index_htm_files/Interface-5-1-Stoddart-and-Ramos.pdf
One of the reason is the luck of methodology and culture of a paticpative decision making. Methdologicl aspects are discussed in
A. Mirakyan 214. A methodology in innovative support of the integrated energy planning preparation and orientation phase.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544214012390
In my book, Importing Democracy: The Role of NGOs in South Africa, Tajikistan and Argentina, (Kettering Foundation Press: 2013) the discussion of public deliberation promoted by Argentine democratization NGOs will be particularly interesting to you. (chapter 10). See also chapters 4 and 7 on political participation in South Africa and Tajikistan. www.importingdemocracy.org
Hello Andrea
First of all, I think you need to define what democracy looks like for your context (place, cultural shape of society, scale). In contemporary society, it is quite easy to confound right to vote or potential to participate with democracy. Different times and societies have diverse concepts of democracy. In ancient Greek, democracy was totally addressed to the high levels of society in terms of income and knowledge. From the XVIII century on, we have a plural view of democracy. Some scholars tried to find it through ideal types of organization (Max Weber), throug ideal types of communication (Jurgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel), and recently, through ladders of participation (Arnstein, 1969). However, I see that in technoscience fields there is not so much worries on the issue of participation, we have a traditional gap not only between hard and soft sicences (that I totally think is a non sense, even call some hard, or some soft science). We have such gap even between sociological and Law studies. So, backing to your question, what I see is a illiteracy society that do not learn on ethics, not because it cannot read Aristotelican principles, or John Rawls studies on theory of justice. It is because people live their lives focused on individuals interests rather than on collective. Society is little by little killing itself each time it forget about the collective value, collective sense. So, I deliver back your question: to get participation, what kind of democracy should we have, or could we?
Dears @Mirakyan, @Fisher and @Viegas:
Thank you for the participation of each of you.
And Claudia, I liked your question.
Thankfully,
Andréa
People vote in a variety of ways, not just at the ballot box. First, they may vote with their feet, moving when things are not going their way. They also vote through complaints expressed in a variety of ways. When things are going their way, they may not feel the need to vote at the ballot box; similarly when they have minority views, they may not feel that voting is worth while. Of course, the need to vote is diminished as more public services are financed by user charges.
Hi
there are different ways for engagements of citiesens in the planning like for very passive involvement like "info-paper", info point up to phisical involvement of citicesns in a patricipative planning workshops. I found in my research and review that one of the reason is the lack of systematic methodology, you might find some discussion in the paper below
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544214012390
Good luck!
Don't forget that all municipal;ities in modern democracies and earlier have elected local governments with councillors for each small area, that looks after a whole host of services. It is up to the residents to participate. Britain has a huge tradition of powerful local governments with beautiful town halls and a lot of interesting buildings like public parks, sports halls, swimming pools, and baths to wash in for those who don't have bathrooms at home all of which explain the expression "Municipal Pride".
Parties put up candidates for local elections and for a long time we have had shortages of candidates who come forward to stand for election for a party - so much for people wanting to participate! From 1970s urban local governments formed "Women's Committees" to ensure equality legislation was implemented and women's specific needs implemented. In other countries mayors are powerful and manage to have a strong effect on the city or town. However, there is some research in UK showing that people basically want to have an efficient and proactive local council and be left in peace to get on with their own lives, knowing that their local taxes seem to be well-spent. The local level can also tend to give way to favouritism (if not corruption) in the handing out of contracts for services - especially where these are privatised - and would like to have services brought 'in house'. The question of engagement is important , especially where citizens have no control mechanisms over bad services (rubbish left uncollected in parks is typical). More modern town halls run large feedback loops and man the complaints phone lines efficiently to find out how and where their services are failing to give satisfaction.
Possibly an electoral system for local government should lead to a variety of parties taking part in local government, in order to prevent one-party/one-man dominance at the local level, creating "fiefdoms", so no majoritarian electoral systems should be used, only proportional ones. This is linked to party cultures of clientelism and being soft on personal corruption, so arises out of national cultures of strong or weak revulsion at corruption, in order words citizens have to be wholly intolerant of favouritisms from the start, as a principle - even if its "our guys" who have their hands in the till.
Dear Andrea, this is a very challenging question, and Brazil is arguably a pivotal example of such asymmetry. I recommend you to look for research that discusses agency problems, agency theory, and the relationships between discourses and representations in sustainability. I am working in this way right now. Kind regards.
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