Municipal government and popular participation in Latin America

Abstract

Municipal government and popular participation in Latin America examines the different ways in which organizations formed by low-income groups interact with municipal government in seeking to meet their collective consumption needs (for instance water supply, sanitation, garbage collection) within the context of the structural crisis. The paper describes the contrasting strategies adopted by different income groups in response to the failure of local government to provide for these needs and discusses the different forms of relationship between popular sectors and municipal authorities. It also considers how and under what conditions the mobilization of popular sectors has allowed them to obtain more power in decision making at the municipal level.

Community-Based Targeting Mechanisms for Social Safety Nets: A Critical Review

“…Studies from Latin America (Fiszbein 1997, Herzer and Pirez 1991, López Murphy and Inter-American Development Bank. 1995, Nickson 1995, Peterson 1997, Veltmeyer 1997) reach similar conclusions.…”

Social Capital and Community Strategies: Neighbourhood Development in Guatemala City

“…Based on research in several cities in Latin America, Alsayyad (1993: 42) highlights the importance of this strategy for community development: 'In Latin America the most effective approach for squatters is to connect with the political system either through the official or oppositional parties and use electoral competitions to advance their interests'. As Herzer and Pirez (1991) note, clientelism both responds to need and also perpetuates the power inequalities which function within governmentpopular sector relations. Clientelism appeared to be a strategy widely adopted in both communities.…”

“…Drawing on Jayaratne and Wanniarachchi (1992), Lee (1998: 994) describes community organizations as 'usually voluntary membership organizations of beneficiaries formed to achieve a set of common goals that benefit the members, who reside within a geographically defined neighbourhood'. Participation in community organizations is often an attempt to compensate for the subordinate position of the popular sectors in local political life: this is achieved through social struggles or political struggles, and may involve a process of empowerment for the popular urban sectors, as well as provision of basic services (Herzer and Pirez, 1991). In this respect, community organizations are a critical driving force in neighbourhood development, since they constitute a visible, tangible entity with which other stakeholders, such as local government, may work.…”

“…This allows a certain unity to exist in the community organizations, but it also encourages different ideas and concerns to be expressed and numerous types of community work to be carried out by the various groups. The Neighbourhood Association currently participates in a wide range of community development initiatives, which continually renew and maintain the motivation for its existence, so that in spite of having met its original objectives (land tenure) it has not disappeared, as is commonly the case (Herzer and Pirez, 1991).…”

Introduction: Urban Growth Patterns – Trends and Policy Issues

“…The political ideology of the state can have a critical infl uence on the extent of popular participation in urban development. The election of progressive local governments in the municipalities of Moreno, Buenos Aires (Hercer and Pirez, 1991) and Vila El Salvador in Lima (Peattie, 1990) was accompanied by decentralization of decision-making to the community level, while in several Brazilian cities, participatory policies of various kinds were introduced following the electoral success of the Workers' Party in the late 1980s (Souza, 2001).…”