A Model of Participatory Democracy: Understanding the Case of Porto Alegre

Participatory Democracy is a process of collective decision making that combines elements from both Direct and Representative Democracy: Citizens have the ultimate power to decide on policy and politicians assume the role of policy implementation. The aim of this paper is to understand how Participatory Democracy operates, and to study its implications over the behavior of citizens and politicians and over the final policy outcomes. To this end, we explore a formal model inspired in the experience of Participatory Budgeting implemented in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre and that builds on the model of meetings with costly participation by Osborne, Rosenthal, and Turner (2000).Participatory Democracy, Porto Alegre, assembly, legislator

Participatory Democracy

This article will explain the public participation arrangement in the member-selection mechanism of the Local House of Representatives and how far the provision of political participation area for the public is in Act Number 8 Year 2012 on The Election of The Member of The Central House of Representatives, Regional House of Representatives, and Local House of Representatives. The public participation arrangement in the selection of the Local House of Representatives member and the provision of public political participation area can be found in Act Number 8 Year 2012 on The Election of The Member of The Central House of Representatives, Regional House of Representatives, and Local House of Representatives and each Articles of Association and Bylaw of the Political Party. Keywords: democracy, participatio

Forms of Participatory Democracy: An Analytical Framework Based on the Experiences of Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia

Based on the experiences of Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia, the paper proposes a general analytical framework for participatory mechanisms. The analysis is oriented to detect the incentives in each system and the ethics and behavior sustaining them. It investigates about the sustainability of participatory democracy, in the face of tensions with representative democracy. The article presents a theoretical framework built from these experiences of institutional design and political practice, and confronts it against the theoretical conceptualizations of participatory democracy in Bobbio, Sartori, Elster and Nino, among others. In this context, different ways in wich those schemes can be inserted in the political systems become apparent, along with the variables that result from combinig elements of direct, representative and participatory democracy.********************************************************************************************************A partir de la experienca de Colombia, Brasil y Bolivia, el artículo propone un marco de análisis general de esquemas de democracia participativa. El análisis está orientado a detectar los incentivos presentes en cada uno de los sistemas y la ética y el comportamiento que sostiene estas instituciones. Investiga además su sostenibilidad al enfrentar tensiones en su interacción con la democracia representativa. El artículo presenta un marco teórico a partir de estas experiencias de diseño institucional y prácticas políticas, y su comparación con las conceptualizaciones teóricas de la democracia participativa de Bobbio, Sartori, Elster y Nino, entre otros. En este análisis se resaltan las diferentes maneras en que tales sistemas políticos son introducidos, así como las variables que resultan de la combinación entre democraica directa, participativa y representativa.democracy, participation, participatory budgets, local government

Buen Vivir under Correa: The Rhetoric of Participatory Democracy, the Reality of Rentier Populism

This article seeks to understand the relationship between populism and participatory democracy through analysis of Rafael Correa\u27s left populist regime in Ecuador (2007-2017). It argues that rather than adhering to its own standard for participatory democracy, what the Correa regime referred to as the Socialism of Buen Vivir, it employed the rhetoric of participatory democracy in the service of populist rule. As a result, the Correa regime failed to promote the participatory form of democracy and citizenship promised in Buen Vivir, its version of twenty-first-century socialism. Accordingly, analysis of the Correa regime demonstrates how the concentration of top-down executive power characteristic of populism in general, and rentier populism in particular, impedes the egalitarian and solidaristic mission of participatory democracy. Thus, inductive analysis of the Correa regime reinforces the conceptual understanding that populism is antagonistic and antithetical to participatory democracy

Reviving Social Hope and Pragmatism in Troubled Times.

Review of: Pragmatism and Social Hope: Deepening Democracy in Global Contexts. Judith M. Green. New York, Columbia University Press, 2008. Pp. x 1 292. Hbk. $34.50, d24.00. This article commends Judith Green for reviving pragmatism as a persuasive basis for deepening democracy in her latest book Pragmatism and Social Hope. It highlights her criticisms of neopragmatist Richard Rorty and describes the useful directives she provides for developing a unifying and mobilizing hopeful vision for the future. Finally, it spells out the educational implications resulting from Green’s inspiring call to participatory democracy

The mass movement and public policy : discourses of participatory democracy in Post-1994 South Africa

Abstract: Despite policy commitments and legislated mechanisms, the system of participatory democracy in post-1994 South Africa is largely considered to have failed. In order to understand how underlying ideas can help to explain weaknesses in practice, this article examines how participatory democracy is understood by the ruling African National Congress (ANC). It shows that the multiple intellectual traditions shaping the participatory model have led to a set of policy initiatives that are not without internal tension. In part, the technocratic creep associated with improving public sector performance has stymied participatory efforts by placing efficiency and delivery over democracy and empowerment. Alongside this, however, the ANC’s own conception of ‘democracy’ remains interwoven with its mass movement history – linking the role of popular participation to the extension of its own hegemony. The intent of policy to deepen democracy through structures of participatory governance is thus undermined by a teleological framing of participation as an intra-movement activity

Session 1 : Community governance and participatory democracy : Community, government, systems

On Day 3 (15 June 2018), in the session of “Community Governance and Participatory Democracy”, Gilberto LOPEZ Y RIVAS (National Institute of Anthropology and History, Mexico) delivered a lecture on Community, Government, Systems. The video is produced by Global University for Sustainability, 2018

Sabbatical Leave Proposal

I wish to study the teaching of participatory democracy in entry level political science courses - Introduction to Political Science and American National Government. I believe that many Americans are distrustful of their elected leaders and cynical toward their governmental institutions. Signs of this malaise are declining voter turnouts, the success of negative campaigning ads, and the low level of discourse on talk radio shows. These conditions, if lasting, undermine democratic government\u27s reliance on citizen participation. Faculty who teach political science in the most democratic of higher learning institutions, the community colleges, should, I feel, analyze these factors to determine their consequences for the teaching of participatory democracy. We educate a large number of the people who take an interest in public affairs and bother to vote. In doing this we have real power to strengthen American democracy. During my leave, I will examine: (a) the literature on participatory democracy, (b) how other faculty are dealing with distrust and cynicism in their teaching of participatory democracy, and (c) what additions or deletions should be made to the teaching of participatory democracy in Parkland College political science courses

European Citizens' Initiative: Legal Options for Implementation Below the Constitutional Level

The EU has long been criticized for its democratic deficit. Several proposals for overcoming or reducing this deficit have been made. Some of them mention the role of more citizen participation and direct democracy. It was in this spirit that the ECI found its way into the Constitutional Treaty, creating the first tool of transnational participatory/direct democracy. It is aimed to give the Uniom's citizens more influence on EU politics while maintaining the institutional balance - especially the initiative monopoly of the European Commission - of the Union