Civic Culture, Community and Citizen Participation in Contrasting Neighbourhoods

Abstract

This paper uses survey and qualitative evidence from four neighbourhoods in two cities to explore the hypothesis that citizen participation in urban governance is fostered by political structures and public policy as well as by a civic culture supportive of citizen involvement. The analysis shows that although the prospects for citizen participation are likely to be least propitious in poor neighbourhoods demonstrating lower educational attainment levels, for example, such factors may be mitigated by political mobilisation and the approaches to urban governance, including citizen participation, adopted by local institutions. Citizen participation may be fostered as much by the creation of opportunity structures that build confidence in the efficacy of participation as by the intrinsic levels of civic culture. The key policy lesson is that the effort devoted to creating greater institutional thickness and participatory structures is not wasted.

Culture and Place-Based Development: A Socio-Economic Analysis

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Promoting waste separation for recycling and local governance in Thailand

“…This has been propelled by two inter-related factors: heightened environmental awareness and public education, and co-production or partnerships in the recycling program (Folz, 1999(Folz, , 1991Taylor, 1999;Lober, 1996;Tchobanoglous, Theusen, & Vigil, 1993;Ward & Gleiber, 1993;Powelson & Powelson, 1992;Anderson & Burnham, 1992). In turn, development of these factors implies two important favorable conditions: (a) the existence of an adequate civic culture or awareness; 1 and, (b) fairly developed opportunity structures for participation and whose utilization by citizens has been producing unequivocal results about the efficacy of participation (Dotcherty, Goodlad, & Paddison, 2001;Brinkerhoff, 2000). Similar to other development projects, a collaborationist and synergistic relationship between civil society and the state, therefore, is seen as ideal socio-political context for high and widespread success of recycling and waste separation projects involving people's participation (See, for example, Stren, 2001;Granada, 2001;Velasquez, 1999;Carley, 2001;Evans, 2002).…”

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“…The importance of feeling a sense of attachment to the local community one lives in and the level of community participation and organization by residents have been shown to have strong impact on health and quality of life outcomes of residents (Kearns et al 2000;Docherty et al 2001).…”