International Journal of Urban and Regional Research: September 2010

Abstract

Participation is a popular buzzword in contemporary urban studies, cropping up across the political spectrum. The direct involvement of ordinary citizens in the initiation, formulation, implementation and monitoring of public policy is increasing throughout the world. Many international organizations and social scientists present 'democratization' or inclusionary participation as an unalloyed good, countering concern about declining social capital, heavy-handed bureaucracy, government inefficiency and social exclusion. Yet their conceptions of democracy often diverge, giving rise to debate about the ideal form of citizen participation in self-government. Traditional representative democracy, in which elections aggregate preferences, interests and votes, has fallen into disfavour. As the contributions that follow illustrate, this is associated with a renaissance of direct citizen participation in politics and governance at the local level. In contrast to the technocratic and output-oriented notion of 'good governance', many see participatory, direct or deliberative democracy as an attractive and less elitist basis for political legitimation sitting alongside traditional democratic representation. This symposium examines empirical cases of inclusionary participation of 'ordinary' residents from cities throughout the world.