The challenges of the new local power: participation as a relational strategy in local government

Abstract

In the last years we are taking part in a renewed interest for participation towards the idea of a participative democracy. This can be seen through diverse symptoms: the emergence of numerous social organizations, the development of new social movements and significant and innovating experiences of relational participation which are taking place in numerous municipalities. It is pertinent to ask if this symptoms are outlines of  a new social paradigm where Participative Democracy reaches to a significant   centrality.

In this essay basic conceptual propositions are offered on relational participation. For that purpose, four approaches are developed, which, when combined, help to build this concept needed to consolidate the alliance between local government and social entities, which is highly necessary to reorient a social-economic model that is increasingly entropic. Although the existing political culture and the related administrative and social structures must be radically transformed by applying principles such as subsidiarity, cooperation, coordination and corresposibility. This new paradigm is identified with the idea of relational management model and is thus presented as an “ideal type” in contrast to other types of municipality management.