The Scale of Participation: From Municipal Public Budget to Cities' Conference

Abstract

"In a well ordered city every man flies to the assemblies: under a bad government no one cares to stir a step to get to them, because no one is interested in what happens there, because it is foreseen that the general will will not prevail, and lastly because domestic cares are allabsorbing. Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse. As soon as man says of the affairs of the State What does it matter to me? the State may be given up for lost. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1950: 93)." (author's abstract