Towards participatory local governance: six propositions for discussion

This workshop paper presents six propositions to problematise, and to stimulate thinking around, issues of citizen participation in local governance. First, the author argues that the relationship between government and the governed - throughout the world - is becoming one of distrust and disillusionment. Second, that both citizens and institutions of the state need to work together to rebuild this relationship; citizens need to be more active and engaged, and the state more responsive and effective. Third, that we need to rethink participation in political processes towards an engagement that is more deliberative and which can be understood as a right in itself. Fourth, that citizen participation at the local level can still be exclusionary and not pro-poor, but there is potential for new state-citizen synergies to develop. Fifth, that participatory governance calls for certain preconditions to be created. Sixth, that in the context of globalisation the 'local' needs to be critically examined in terms of discourse, rights, and scale.