Neighborhood-representing organizations: how democratic are they?
Neighborhood-representing organizations (NROs) are generally viewed as the most authentic form of citizen participation and local democracy. In this article, the author questions how democratic NROs actually are, both on the local level (participatory democracy) and in the external arena (representative democracy). He presents a new conceptual model of the components of democracy in neighborhood organizations. A review of the literature is presented within the context of this model to show to what extent NROs are democratic.