Participation In Local Affairs Research Articles

Groundwork for Democracy? Community Abeyance and Lived Citizenship in Hong Kong

Studies on Hong Kong’s contentious politics have focused primarily on the high tides of mobilization. Scant attention is paid to what became of the intense mobilizations following their decline. This article spotlights the “abeyance” politics of community activism, in which activists sought to make territorial communities an arena of social and political participation in quieter times after mass mobilizations. Drawing on the concept of abeyance from political sociology, we argue that community activism served as “abeyance structures” after the mass mobilizations in the early 2010s, a major protest cycle preceding the 2019 anti-extradition movement. Based on mixed methods and original data, we argue that these abeyance structures not only allowed activists to maintain their political engagement but also gave rise to various practices of “lived citizenship” in territorial communities. These practices produced a changing sense of political subjectivity among citizens, establishing a more grounded notion of democracy that emphasizes their participation in local affairs and social entitlements. Our findings aim to enrich the literature on movement abeyance and provide a nuanced understanding of political activism in Hong Kong beyond street politics.

Основні характеристики участі громадян у місцевому самоврядуванні

The article provides a theoretical analysis of the essence of the process of citizen participation in local self-government. It is determined that public participation in local government should be understood as: independent participation of citizens (general public) in local self-government, in the forms of direct democracy; legalization of the activity of local self-government bodies by citizens through the exercise of suffrage and control rights; proper participation of citizens, social actors in decision-making and performance of the State tasks, including services, by local self-government bodies in the field of local, territorial or regional affairs, as well as the State affairs. It is noted that the existing scientific developments and the carried out analysis allowed to concludeaboutthe need to study public participation in local self-government based on the specification of key characteristics, namely the levels, forms and mechanisms of participation. The the groups of levels of public participation in local self-government and the hierarchy of the process of public participation depending on the level of public influence are interpreted according to the Sherry Arnstein classification. The practices of democratic countries regarding community participation in local affairs and direct participation in local self-government are analyzed and singled out. It is determined that one of the main tasks in this issue is the cooperation of citizens with the authorities to address pressing issues of national and local importance, which can be achieved through the introduction of direct forms of citizen participation in local self-government. Ukraine is actively transforming democratic processes and gradually forming a strong and active civil society. One of the main tasks in this issue is the cooperation of citizens with the authorities to address pressing issues of national and local importance, which can be achieved through the introduction of direct forms of citizen participation in local self-government. The key characteristics of the implementation of citizen participation in local self-government are given.

La estrategia de gobierno en línea: ¿un mecanismo efectivo para la participación ciudadana en la administración de lo público?

A partir del open government, las entidades gubernamentales vienen aplicando estrategias como la de gobierno en línea para recuperar legitimidad y mejorar la calidad del servicio público, garantizando la participación fácil y efectiva de la población; sin embargo, estas estrategias parecen tener un bajo impacto por restricciones de parte de la ciudadanía en el uso estos nuevos mecanismos. De ahí la necesidad de determinar cuáles son las posibles limitaciones que disminuyen el impacto de la implementación de la estrategia de gobierno en línea como instrumento de participación ciudadana, propósito para el que se hizo seguimiento, durante los últimos dos años, a diez entidades territoriales del departamento de Cundinamarca que vienen empleando la estrategia. Los resultados preliminares demuestran que pese a la disposición de canales de interacción por parte de las administraciones municipales, la participación de la población en los asuntos locales sigue siendo bastante precaria, haciéndose evidente la necesidad de empoderamiento previo de la ciudadanía, más aún cuando median mecanismos novedosos que implican mayores niveles de aprendizaje y comprensión

English

This paper aims to put forward the importance of e-governance in achieving sustainable grassroots development in Nigeria. The emergence of information communication technology has provided opportunity for borderlessness, interconnectedness and de-territorialization of government policies and programmes within the global village. Information communication technology is a necessary political tool set out to reconcile traditional barrier of distance in the management of public affairs. Today, E-governance has being implemented in Europe and other westernized countries for sustainable development through the application and adoption of Open Access Information Communication Technology (OAICT) designed to enhance social service delivery at the grassroots level. This paper adopts secondary sources of data. It argues that e-governance promotes participatory, transparent, responsive and inclusive democracy to enhance grassroots development.  The accessibility of local citizens to their elected representatives and basic social services through the provision of information communication technology enhances effective communication between the government and the governed at the grassroots level, while it creates open plain ground for the citizens to receive feedbacks from the appropriate local government channel. This study concludes that e-governance ensures effective and efficient service delivery and enhancing citizen’s participation in local affairs. It therefore recommends that federal government should make policy that will facilitate and fast-track the adoption of ICT and training of local government personnel in the art of e-governance through which sustainable grassroots development could be accomplished in Nigeria. Key words: E-governance, e-government, information communication technology, grassroot development, local government, democracy, Nigeria.

Service Delivery Protests, Struggle for Rights and the Failure of Local Democracy in South Africa and Uganda: Parallels and Divergences

Although the two countries are thousands of miles apart, Uganda and South Africa have both experienced service delivery protests in recent years. The protests have been directed mainly at local governments, although in Uganda some are directed at private service providers such as the electricity distributor, Umeme. There are a number of parallels and divergences between the two countries, particularly in relation to the causes and the nature that the protests have taken. Both countries are experiencing challenges in implementing decentralisation, which has mainly been characterised by a failure to effectively involve local communities in decision-making as a way of effecting local democracy. Mismanagement, corruption, and incapacity to deliver at the local levels are common to both countries. The divergences relate mainly to the level of organisation, frequency and magnitude of the protests. The local government legal framework of Uganda does not emphasise service delivery as much as the South African legal framework does. There is an urgent need for both countries to make local democracy work by building civic competence and creating operational and effective structures for civic participation in local affairs.

An Interview on Innovations in Social Governance: The Wuxi Experiment

Editor’s Notes Professor Wang Ming, Director of the NGO Research Center of the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University led a team to conduct field research in Wuxi County, Chongqing City, in early August, 2011. The team discovered several innovations implemented in the local social governance. First, there is the “Lehe Homeland”, a community building model that stimulates the initiative of grassroots citizens and enthusiasm for participation in local affairs by setting up the Lehe Mutual Support Group as a platform for mutual communication and support between urban and rural populations. Second, there is the “general mass work” mechanism. A Mass Work Department (群工部) was set up by the county party committee as a liaison between the party committee and government organizations with horizontal coordination and supervision functions to engage in social governance from the mass work. Third, a “grid-style management” scheme was implemented. This refers to a comprehensive, service-oriented grid-style administrative system that meets both rural and urban demands on public services, and serves the purpose of building a service-oriented government. Fourth, different participants including the village governing committee, village party committee, Lehe Mutual Support Group, departments included in the grid-style system, NGOs, the Mass Work Department, etc., were brought together under a “joint council” system to hold meetings on a regular basis for the purpose of communication and cooperation. These new features in Wuxi’s social governance experiment intrigued Professor Wang Ming so much that he invited Zheng Xiangdong (郑向东), Party Secretary of Wuxi County, and Liao Xiaoyi (廖晓义), founder of Global Village of Beijing to Tsinghua University in mid-November for a public dialogue on the practice of and experiences with Wuxi’s innovative social governance experiments, using the example of community building at Lehe Homeland. The following is the edited transcript of the dialogue.

The system of local self-government in the first and second Lithuanian republic

This article analyzes the system of Lithuanian local self-government, its changes, and its main reforms. It compares the First Republic (1918-1940) and the Second Republic (1990-2010) with respect to the way local government institutions were elected and the possibilities for citizen participation in local affairs. A comparison of the legal regulations of both periods shows that in the Second Republic from 1990 onwards the system of self-government and the laws defining it underwent frequent changes while the First Republic featured only a few reforms and several minor changes in law. Thus the legal regulation of self-government in the Second Republic turns out to have been relatively unstable so far. Some of the elements of self-government in the First Republic seem to have been more progressive than those that exist now. Self-government in the First Republic was manifest on two levels, providing for the election of district and county councils, whereas now we can only elect municipal councils. Districts were divided into elderships which elected their elders, whereas now the elder is apponted by the director of the municipality administration. In the First Republic, the problem of territorial representation in village municipalities was solved in a better way: the district‘s territory was divided into precincts where a majoritarian election system prevailed. From 1929 on a different system was chosen: each eldership elected its representative to the district council, and each district council picked its representative to the county council. Hence there was an attempt on both the district and the county levels to preserve territorial representativeness—something that cannot be claimed for the present-day election system. [...]

The Limits of Napoleonic Centralization: Notables and Local Government in the Department of the Isere from the Consulate to the beginning of the July Monarchy

The law of 28 Pluviôse VIII (17 February 1800), which installed a new administrative regime in France, appeared to establish an extremely centralized system in which the notables fulfilled no more than an honorific function. The Napoleonic period is thus regarded as the apogee of administrative centralization. On the basis of a study of the Isère from the Consulate to the July Monarchy, however, this article seeks to show the reality of elite participation in local affairs, the existence of a ‘système des notables’ from the time of Napoleon onwards, and the fundamental continuity in this respect with succeeding regimes. The notables did not hesitate to lobby the government in order to defend the interests of the department when this was necessary. They also played an essential role in the conduct of local administration and exercised a decisive influence over the choice of local officials before the advent of elections in the 1830s.

An Empirical Study for the Establishment of Desirable Relation Between the Local Council and the Local Executive

The re-introduction of legislative bodies at two levels of local government in April and July 1991 through the local elections opened the new era of local autonomy. Local autonomy means the management of local affairs by local government, not the central authority, using local organs. Theoretically, there are several essential advantages of local autonomy : first, it will increase the extent of citizens' participation in local affairs ; second, it will produce effective public service because local governments are more responsive to local demands and more accountable to local inhabitants ; and third, it will function as a means of checking and balancing the central government. In spite of much negative aspects of the initial stage of the two years' experience on local autonomy, our local autonomy system is now being settled in high speed, especially with the launching of Kim Young-sam Administration into the sea of democracy.

Linking the Micro- and Macrolevel Dimensions of Community Social Organization

Linking the Micro- and Macrolevel Dimensions of Community Social Organization

POPULAR MOVEMENTS, INCIDENTAL FACTORS, AND THE STATE'S MEASURES FOR REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

This paper examines the major influences on and changes in regional development in Iran since the revolution of 1979, and evaluates the state's efforts to balance regional development. Three influences have been identified, namely, popular movements, incidental factors, and the state's measures. Among the incidental factors, the Iran‐Iraq war has been the most significant. It led to economic destruction, reduction of provincial disparity and massive internal migration. The popular movements, on the other hand, followed disruption of the state machinery and led to a de facto administrative decentralization, an upsurge of local initiatives, and an active public participation in local affairs. However, the increasing centralization of the state since the Revolution is eroding the positive effects of these trends. While the state‐induced constitutional, administrative, planning, and policy measures are designed to realize balanced regional development, their real effect remains limited due to problems in implementation and the lack of a coherent development strategy. However, there is evidence that regional disparity is narrowing rather than widening. Although this is a result of the three forces combined, each one of the three forces appears to have helped to induce this change.

The politics of local government reform in rural Bangladesh

AbstractSeveral changes have been introduced in the system of local government in rural Bangladesh following the country's independence. Examination reveals that they were changes only in nomenclature, and did not result in significant improvements. The constant effort by the central government to retain control over local bodies, and the tendency of the ruling elite not to disturb the existing local government system, have worked to the detriment of reforms. The existing local government system failed to satisfy the aspirations of the rural Bangladeshis for increased participation in local affairs. After the first change of government in Bangladesh, the new ruling group felt the need for a support base in the rural areas. The formation of a new political party and the necessity of extending it to the grass roots, increased the desire of the people to participate in local affairs, and the realization of the importance of initiating and completing rural development programmes at the lowest level made the government aware of the need for local government institutions based in the villages. The government was impressed by the success of the Swanirvar Bangladesh Andolon, and introduced Swanirvar Gram Sarkar as a major reform in the local government system.