Participatory Frustration: The Unintended Cultural Effect of Local Democratic Innovations

Fernández-Martínez, José Luis; Espín, Patricia García; Sánchez, Manuel Jiménez

doi:10.1177/0095399719833628

Cited by 30 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Most of them agree that the ACs' influential capacity is limited, but they accept this role as it has been made clear since their creation. The appearance of "participatory frustration" (Fernández-Martínez et al, 2019) has a greater connection to unfulfilled promises than to the modest objectives of these institutions. Participants tend to appreciate that they can perform different democratic roles (Goodin & Dryzek, 2006;Jaske & Setala, 2019) and that some of them, such as agenda-setting or public debate, may be just as interesting (see also Bua, 2017) as the role of making final decisions about detailed policy solutions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Closer, the Better? Comparing Advisory Councils at Different Government Levels

Brugué

Fábregas

Ruiz

2020

Administration & Society

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Advisory councils exist at diverse government levels, making them especially appropriate to address the discussion about scaling up participatory institutions, by comparing their differences across different government levels. We analyze the characteristics of advisory councils in Spain, where they are quite similar at the national, regional, and local levels, allowing a controlled comparison of their functioning and results. Results show similarities across territorial levels and also signs of a better performance of the local and regional ones, especially regarding the satisfaction of participants. Relational goods and different understandings of what policy influence means are crucial explanations of these patterns.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Closer, the Better? Comparing Advisory Councils at Different Government Levels

Brugué

Fábregas

Ruiz

2020

Administration & Society

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“…In this respect, the autonomy of allied social movements and the opening of institutions to enable grassroots actors to act as a counterbalance is an important feature of a DDG regime. Failure to foster radical change through participatory processes may however generate a disaffection spiral that risks hampering the political capacity of social movements allied to the DDG administration (Fernández et al 2019). The machinery of city government is not a neutral tool and can exercise strong influence in policy implementation (John 2011).…”

Section: Between Gdd and Ddg: A Dynamic Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between governance‐driven democratisation and democracy‐driven governance: Explaining changes in participatory governance in the case of Barcelona

Bua

Bussu

2020

European J Political Res

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Scholars of participatory democracy have long noted dynamic interactions and transformations within and between political spaces that can foster (de)democratisation. At the heart of this dynamism lie (a) the processes through which top-down "closed" spaces can create opportunities for rupture and democratic challenges and (b) vice-versa, the mechanisms through which bottom-up, open spaces can be co-opted through institutionalisation. This paper seeks to unpick dynamic interactions between different spaces of participation by looking specifically at two forms of participatory governance, or participatory forms of political decision making used to improve the quality of democracy. First, Mark Warren's concept of 'governance-driven democratization' describes top-down and technocratic participatory governance aiming to produce better policies in response to bureaucratic rationales. Second, we introduce a new concept, democracy-driven governance, to refer to efforts by social movements to invent new, and reclaim and transform existing, spaces of participatory governance and shape them to respond to citizens' demands. The paper defines these concepts and argues that they co-exist and interact in dynamic fashion; it draws on an analysis of case study literature on participatory governance in Barcelona to illuminate this relationship. Finally, the paper relates the theoretical framework to the case study by making propositions as to the structural and agential drivers of shifts in participatory governance.

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“…However, the fate of these institutions has always been related to their legitimacy [5,17,23], which suggests a concern for participants' satisfaction with their functioning. Previous studies have shown that this satisfaction cannot be taken for granted, and may even result in participatory frustration [24,25]. Thus, it is necessary to incorporate participants' satisfaction into the analysis, since all these aspects influence whether participants have a more or less troubling view of these participatory institutions and the role conflict plays in them.…”

Section: From Defining Characteristics To Perceptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing Environmental Advisory Councils: How They Work and Why it Matters

2020

Self Cite

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In many countries, advisory councils are the most common participatory institution in which public administration interacts with civil society around environmental issues. Nevertheless, our knowledge about them is quite limited. The main goal of this article is to show the differences they present with advisory councils in other policy areas in three main aspects: who participates, how they work, and which are their outputs. These differences are especially important because they emerge again regarding their participants’ opinions and satisfaction. We adopt a quantitative perspective in order to analyze this reality in Spain, a country where advisory councils are widespread and highly institutionalized at national, regional and local levels. After developing a mapping of 2013 existing advisory councils, we selected a sample of 55 in three policy areas. The data collected included their formal rules, composition, website characteristics and a survey to 501 participants. This set of evidence shows that environmental councils are more poorly designed, and that this is consequential since it is related with more negative opinions among their members and to a larger degree of polarization in their perceptions.

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Participatory Frustration: The Unintended Cultural Effect of Local Democratic Innovations

Cited by 30 publications

References 59 publications

The Closer, the Better? Comparing Advisory Councils at Different Government Levels

The Closer, the Better? Comparing Advisory Councils at Different Government Levels

Between governance‐driven democratisation and democracy‐driven governance: Explaining changes in participatory governance in the case of Barcelona

Comparing Environmental Advisory Councils: How They Work and Why it Matters

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