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Article
Publication date: 1 March 2009

Participatory budgeting in north america: the case of guelph, canada

Elizabeth Pinnington, Josh Lerner and Daniel Schugurensky

In 1989, the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre initiated a model of budget participation known internationally as "participatory budgeting." In this process of diagnosis…

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In 1989, the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre initiated a model of budget participation known internationally as "participatory budgeting." In this process of diagnosis, deliberation and decision-making, city residents directly decide how to allocate part of a public budget, typically at the level of municipal government. During the past two decades, hundreds of cities in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa have adapted this model of participatory democracy to their own contexts. In this article, we explore one of the first Canadian experiments of participatory budgeting. In Guelph, Ontario, a civil society organization called the Neighbourhood Support Coalition uses participatory budgeting to allocate of public and private funds. We discuss the Canadian context for this experiment, as well as the history and evolution of participatory budgeting in Guelph. Based on four years of interviews, ethnographic observation, and primary and secondary literature, we identify several lessons learned through the Guelph process, as well as the conditions that have enabled its development and posed challenges for its success.

Details

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, vol. 21 no. 3
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBAFM-21-03-2009-B005
ISSN: 1096-3367

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Article
Publication date: 1 April 1992

Environmental Social Movements in Latin America and Europe: Challenging Development and Democracy

María Pilar García-Guadilla and Jutta Blauert

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International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 12 no. 4/5/6/7
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/eb060146
ISSN: 0144-333X

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Article
Publication date: 30 November 2020

Democracy in flux: a systemic view on the impact of COVID-19

Lucy J. Parry, Hans Asenbaum and Selen A. Ercan

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how a systemic view of democracy can provide insights into the myriad ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic affects democracies…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how a systemic view of democracy can provide insights into the myriad ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic affects democracies worldwide. This enables the authors to offer practical suggestions for strengthening democracy through meaningful participation in the spaces where deficits are most apparent.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use the systems approach that has emerged from the deliberative and participatory democracy literature in recent years to map out the impacts of COVID-19. In this paper, the authors set out this approach as an agenda for future, more comprehensive research.

Findings

The authors’ preliminary overview suggests that democratic spaces are reconfigured during COVID-19, with participatory spaces shrinking, overlapping and invading each other. Based on the systemic overview, the authors suggest participatory interventions to address particular points of weakness such as accountability.

Originality/value

Taking a systemic approach to analysing COVID-19’s impacts on democracy enables the authors to understand the pressure points where democratic values and participation are under strain and where citizens’ participation is essential not only for strengthening democracy but also addressing the public health challenge of COVID-19.

Details

Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-09-2020-0269
ISSN: 1750-6166

Keywords

  • Deliberative democracy
  • Political participation
  • Participatory democracy
  • COVID-19
  • Deliberative system
  • Democratic innovations

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Article
Publication date: 8 January 2018

Exploring the antecedents and consequences of organizational democracy

Ali Safari, Reza Salehzadeh and Elham Ghaziasgar

Organizational democracy is the new model of organizational design for a Democratic Age, and out of this new model grows a freedom-centered and healthy climate. Democratic…

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Purpose

Organizational democracy is the new model of organizational design for a Democratic Age, and out of this new model grows a freedom-centered and healthy climate. Democratic management is a key to greater organization success and a necessity to gain higher levels of performance and innovation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents and consequences of organizational democracy in an Iranian context.

Design/methodology/approach

Statistical population includes the employees of the Gas Company of Isfahan Province. For data analysis, 263 accurate completed questionnaires are used. Structural equation modeling is applied to investigate the relationship between the research variables.

Findings

The findings showed that some types of organizational culture (i.e. self-criticism, team, and participatory culture) (β=0.33); and some dimensions of organizational structure (i.e. decentralization, flat hierarchy, and less formalization) (β=0.55) as antecedent variables have a significant direct effect on organizational democracy. Also, organizational democracy has a significant direct effect on human resources outcomes consist of organizational commitment, self-efficacy, and improving work relationships (β=0.64); and organizational outcomes consist of organizational learning and organizational agility (β=0.96).

Originality/value

Despite years of encouragement from consultants and theorists, managers have generally shown little interest toward democratic process as a system of decision making and management in organizations. This study proposes a comprehensive model for identifying the antecedents and consequences of organizational democracy. Most studies in this field are theoretical rather than empirical. But, in this research, the proposed relationships are examined empirically.

Details

The TQM Journal, vol. 30 no. 1
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/TQM-05-2017-0057
ISSN: 1754-2731

Keywords

  • Organizational culture
  • Organizational structure
  • Human resources outcomes
  • Organizational democracy
  • Organizational outcomes

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Article
Publication date: 20 April 2012

In search of workplace democracy

George Kokkinidis

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities of workplace democracy in contemporary organisations. While organisational democracy is a popular theme in…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities of workplace democracy in contemporary organisations. While organisational democracy is a popular theme in contemporary management literature, it is often asserted that participatory democracy is impractical and thus representative forms of governance constitute a more appealing and “realistic” option. Such views not only fail to picture workplace democracy beyond procedural principles (e.g. periodical elections), but they also block one of its promising features: its openness to change. In this context, direct democracy that is guided by horizontality and prefiguration may offer more promising grounds in the search for workplace democracy.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper exposes the contradictions and limits of representative democracy and traces the debates around hierarchism and horizontality, size and democracy with the aim to focus on its core theme – workplace democracy.

Findings

This paper argues that although representative democracy is considered a “realistic” alternative to hierarchical forms of governance it, in fact, reproduces and legitimizes hierarchism. Therefore, organisations can effectively coordinate collective action, without representatives and strict hierarchical structures, by giving emphasis to decentralized networks guided by horizontality and prefiguration.

Originality/value

The paper shows that the current demands for workplace democracy through representation constrains one's imagination of organisational democracy and therefore, one's perception of workplace democracy has to be broadened and radicalized by giving emphasis not only to who rules but also to the process of governance, that is, how to rule.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 32 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/01443331211214785
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

  • Organizations
  • Organizational structures
  • Governance
  • Democracy
  • Hierarchy
  • Horizontality
  • Prefiguration
  • Representation
  • Workplace democracy

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Article
Publication date: 1 January 1991

Devolving Educational Administration in Victoria: Tensions in the Role and Selection of Principals

Peter Watkins

This article discusses the devolution of educational administrationin Victoria from the perspective of the role and selection of principalsin such a devolved system…

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This article discusses the devolution of educational administration in Victoria from the perspective of the role and selection of principals in such a devolved system. Drawing on such writers as Dewey and Giddens the article presents the case why, in a political democracy, we should also have democratically administered organisations. But the tensions and problematic aspects in democratic forms of educational administration are also outlined. These forces impinging on the role and selection of principals are then exemplified through a case study.

Details

Journal of Educational Administration, vol. 29 no. 1
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/09578239110002021
ISSN: 0957-8234

Keywords

  • Australia
  • Management roles
  • Selection
  • Educational administration

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Book part
Publication date: 9 June 2016

When Social Movements Become a Democratizing Force: The Political Impact of the Student Movement in Chile

Sofia Donoso

Drawing on debates on deliberative and participatory democracy, I argue that social movements can be considered to be promoting democratization when they are able to…

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Drawing on debates on deliberative and participatory democracy, I argue that social movements can be considered to be promoting democratization when they are able to compel governments to increase effective participation in the policy-making process, and/or when their democratic claims are translated into an agenda and/or policy impact. This indicates that a social movement has increased the responsiveness of the government it is challenging. Based on this premise, in this paper, I trace the political impact of the Student Movement in Chile. Spearheading the largest protests since the reinstatement of democracy, in 2006, and most notably, in 2011, the Student Movement forced a debate on education and political reforms, and a series of policies to address these issues. The analysis is grounded on more than 50 interviews, and an exhaustive analysis of organizational documents and newspaper data. The case examined in this paper illustrates how the expansion of political opportunities that is necessary for pursuing democratizing reforms not only is driven “from above,” but also “from below.” Studying this process, social movement scholarship can learn a great deal from recent cases of social mobilization in Latin America. These experiences also call for more attention to the role of social movements in democratization studies.

Details

Protest, Social Movements and Global Democracy Since 2011: New Perspectives
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-786X20160000039008
ISBN: 978-1-78635-027-5

Keywords

  • Student Movement
  • Chile
  • democratization
  • political impact
  • education

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Article
Publication date: 1 January 1983

Democratic Enterprise: A Policy Proposal for the Labour Movement

R.G.B. Fyffe

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of…

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This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 3 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/eb012945
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

  • Employees
  • Trade unions
  • Labour parties
  • Employee ownership
  • Distribution of wealth
  • Democracy
  • Industrial democracy
  • Social change
  • Social policy

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Book part
Publication date: 12 August 2014

The Dialectic of Domination and Democracy in Aeschylus’s Oresteia: A Radical Interactionist Reading ☆

A shorter version of this chapter was presented in the session on Radical Interactionism at the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, August 10, 2013, in New York City.

Gil Richard Musolf

This is an interpretive study in the sociology of literature that explores Aeschylus’s trilogy of dramatic plays known as the Oresteia. The plays dramatize a normative…

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This is an interpretive study in the sociology of literature that explores Aeschylus’s trilogy of dramatic plays known as the Oresteia. The plays dramatize a normative argument that exemplifies the dialectical struggle between domination and democracy. Social relations are characterized by agon (struggle), domination, and contradictions brought about by learning through suffering. These social realities reflect the primary theoretical claim of radical interactionism (RI) that domination and conflict are profound, pervasive, and perennial. On the interpersonal level, the plays dramatize structure, agency, role-taking, and the Thomas Axiom. As the first drama to interrogate an inchoate polity as an object of the public’s gaze, the Oresteia anticipates the sociological importance of critical consciousness, collective decision-making, political institutions, moral and, ultimately, cultural transformation. Despite a social context of slavery, imperialism, xenophobia, ostracism, misogyny, exclusivity, and constant warfare, the Oresteia foreshadows Western civilization’s ideals of legal-rational domination, citizenship, human rights, persuasion, and justice that have been imperfectly institutionalized to reduce surplus domination. The West still struggles to realize those ideals.

Details

Revisiting Symbolic Interaction in Music Studies and New Interpretive Works
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-239620140000042005
ISBN: 978-1-78350-838-9

Keywords

  • Aeschylus
  • Oresteia
  • domination
  • dialectic
  • persuasion
  • democracy

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Book part
Publication date: 11 July 2007

Chavez's Venezuela and 21st Century Socialism

Gregory Wilpert

This paper explores the sociological, economic, and political reasons for the collapse of Venezuela's 40-year “pacted” democracy, the eight-year conflict between the…

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This paper explores the sociological, economic, and political reasons for the collapse of Venezuela's 40-year “pacted” democracy, the eight-year conflict between the country's new president and the opposition, where this conflict has led Venezuela, and what its prospects are for the near future. It proposes that the collapse of Venezuela's “ancien regime” can best be understood by an examination of the impact the rise and fall of oil prices had on its economy, society, and polity. A 20-year economic decline led to the election of Hugo Chavez, a radical outsider, who refused to play along with the country's old political class. This class, in turn, refused to accept Chavez as the legitimately elected president and launched the country on an eight-year roller-coaster ride of counter-revolution and radicalization, which recently ended with the reelection of Chavez and a massive popular endorsement for the establishment of “21st century socialism” in Venezuela. Exactly what such a project means is still unclear, but it so far involves state support for self-managed workplaces and an anti-capitalist and participatory democratic state in the midst of a still functioning capitalist economy. With the apparent defeat of obstacles that are external to the Bolivarian movement, as the pro-Chavez movement is called, such as the domestic opposition and U.S. intervention, the movement is now forced to confront its internal obstacles, such as clientelism, corruption, and personalism, if it is to succeed in the long run.

Details

Transitions in Latin America and in Poland and Syria
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0161-7230(07)24001-5
ISBN: 978-1-84950-469-0

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