Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance

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Overview

Volume IV of the Real Utopias Project. Contributions by Rebecca Abers, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Joshua Cohen, Patrick Heller, T.M. Thomas Isaac, Bradley Karkkainen, Rebecca Krantz, Jane Mansbridge, Joel Rogers, Craig W. Thomas.

The institutional forms of liberal democracy developed in the nineteenth century seem increasingly ill-suited to the problems we face in the twenty-first. This dilemma has given rise in some places to a new, deliberative democracy, and this volume explores ...

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Overview

Volume IV of the Real Utopias Project. Contributions by Rebecca Abers, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Joshua Cohen, Patrick Heller, T.M. Thomas Isaac, Bradley Karkkainen, Rebecca Krantz, Jane Mansbridge, Joel Rogers, Craig W. Thomas.

The institutional forms of liberal democracy developed in the nineteenth century seem increasingly ill-suited to the problems we face in the twenty-first. This dilemma has given rise in some places to a new, deliberative democracy, and this volume explores four contemporary empirical cases in which the principles of such a democracy have been at least partially instituted: the participatory budget in Porto Alegre; the school decentralization councils and community policing councils in Chicago; stakeholder councils in environmental protection and habitat management; and new decentralised governance structures in Kerala. In keeping with the other Real Utopias Project volumes, these case studies are framed by an editors' introduction, a set of commentaries, and concluding notes.

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Editorial Reviews

Science and Society
“Erik Wright has made a towering contribution to the thought of the left over a quarter of a century. This arises from his own intellectual contribution ... but also from his tireless work in identifying issues, bringing people together, and encouraging them to publish their results.


”

Publishers Weekly
Both the theory and real-world practice of the oft-extolled but ill-defined concept of "participatory democracy" are fleshed out in this intellectually and stylistically challenging volume, part of the Real Utopias series on re-imagining public life. The contributors, mostly leftish academics, start from the premise that representative democracy often is unresponsive to local needs, discourages public involvement beyond voting and vests real decision-making with powerful interest groups and government policy experts. Their alternative is "Empowered Participatory Governance," in which significant authority is given to local deliberative bodies where ordinary people hash out innovative solutions to everyday, pot-hole-fixing problems. Four experiments in EPG are explored: Chicago's local school councils and community policing program; participatory municipal budgeting in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre; participatory development planning in India; and habitat conservation planning in the United States. Alongside these case studies, theoretical essays and critical commentaries debate the promise and problems of participatory governance. The writers are generally hopeful about these programs, which seem to have paid off in tangible ways like construction projects and reduced crime while nudging the alienated and downtrodden towards engaged citizenship. The book is heavy going, chockfull of detailed descriptions of participatory planning procedures, which involve council assemblies, budget drafts, monitoring commissions and iterations of same, and the authors' turgid academic prose does little to enliven the material. Still, readers who can wade through the jargon and matrices and game-theory abstractions will find an intelligent discussion of vital new possibilities for self-government. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781859846889
  • Publisher: Verso
  • Publication date: 3/1/2003
  • Series: Real Utopias Project Series
  • Pages: 312
  • Product dimensions: 6.40 (w) x 9.50 (h) x 1.20 (d)

Meet the Author

Archon Fung is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University.

Erik Olin Wright is Vilas Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin. He is the author of many books, including Classes, Interrogating Inequality, Class Counts, Deepening Democracy (with Archon Fung), and Envisioning Real Utopias.

Joshua Cohen was born in 1980 in New Jersey. He is the author of five books, including the novels Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto, A Heaven of Others, and Witz. Cohen’s essays have appeared in The Forward, Nextbook, The Believer, and Harper’s. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Joel Rogers is Professor of Law and Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Director of COWS. His many books include On Democracy, Right Turn, The Forgotten Majority, and What Workers Want. A longtime activist, Rogers was identified by Newsweek as one of the 100 Americans most likely to shape U.S. politics and culture in the 21st century.

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Table of Contents

Preface: The Real Utopias Project
Acknowledgements
1 Thinking about Empowered Participatory Governance 3
2 Participation, Activism, and Politics: The Porto Alegre Experiment 45
3 Democracy and Development: Decentralized Planning in Kerala 77
4 Deliberative Democracy, Chicago Style: Grass-roots Governance in Policing and Public Education 111
5 Habitat Conservation Planning 144
6 Practice-Thought-Practice 175
7 Reflections on What Makes Empowered Participatory Governance Happen 200
8 Toward Ecologically Sustainable Democracy? 208
9 Cycles of Reform in Porto Alegre and Madison 225
10 Power and Reason 237
11 Countervailing Power in Empowered Participatory Governance 259
References 291
Index 305
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