Across the world, political space for public engagement in governance appears to be widening. But do these ‘spaces’ offer increased prospects for deliberative democracy, or are they forms of co-option that deflect social energy from other forms of political participation? This article introduces case studies from Brazil, India, Bangladesh, Mexico, South Africa, the UK and the US to consider issues of representation, inclusion, voice, and the efficacy of citizen engagement. Much of the potential of these fledgling democratic institutions has yet to be realised, but change is already beginning.
Spaces for participation are variably understood as moves to extend opportunities for citizen participation in governance, as a means to address the democratic deficit, or as a more radical reconfiguration of citizen-state interactions, encompassing networks across institutional boundaries. Thinking about participation as a ‘space’ highlights the relationships of power within it. Spaces can be ‘invited’; government-provided in response to popular demand, donor pressure or shifts in policy. They can be transient or durable. They can be ‘popular spaces’; in which people come together at their own instigation, or they can be ‘conquered spaces’; a space that exists as a result of successful demands.
The preconditions for equitable participation and voice are often lacking within these spaces, however. For example:
- In Bangladesh, invited spaces, set up in institutional environments characterised by relationships of dependency and fear, have failed to engage ‘ordinary people’. Community Groups have suffered from elite capture, lack of information and clarity about their purpose, and reluctance to question the actions of the state.
- In Cape Town, Area Co-ordinating Teams (ACTs) have been undermined by questions of representation, who speaks for whom, and how claims to representation are made. These consultative bodies were dislocated from governance mechanisms and had limited clout.
- The invited spaces of forest management in Uttaranchal have retained their former colonial institutional power relations. Cultural barriers, fear and dependency have made it difficult for women’s voices to be heard.
There are cases where the way people perceive and engage with governance are taking root. The health councils of Sao Paulo demonstrate how issues of representation guarantee or undermine the legitimacy of participatory spaces. The case of the Zapatista’s popular spaces illustrates how the political implications of any space depend on the locus of its origins, as well as its relationship with other political institutions. While much of the potential of these different types of fledgling democratic institutions has yet to be realised, changes are already taking place.
- Needs are now being framed as a demand for rights and citizens are seeing more of a role for themselves in the process of governance.
- There is still a long way to go before ‘invited spaces’ can become genuinely inclusive and equitable institutions. Improving institutional design, and recognising that the ‘one size fits all’ development rhetoric about governance and institutions does not work, is essential.
- ‘Invited spaces’ need to be understood as embedded in the particular cultural understandings and political configurations that constitute governance in any given context. They must also be situated in the range of domains of association within which actors move, carrying knowledge, connections, resources and identities.
- Further questions need to be asked. To what extent has the expansion of participation by invitation worked to undermine the place of traditional institutions like voting and protest? In whose interest is this? If ‘the door is always open’, what happens to those who choose not to go in – do they become discredited as trouble makers?
