The Woodrow Wilson Center Press
Participatory Innovation and Representative Democracy in Latin America
A Book Launch Event for Participatory Innovations and Democratic Democracy in Latin America was held on October 9, 2009, at the Wilson Center.
This empirically grounded collection examines the growth of participatory institutions in Latin American democracy and how such institutions affect representative government. While most existing literature concentrates on model cases of participatory budgeting in Brazil, this volume investigates cases in Mexico, Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina, where conditions for innovation have been far less favorable. The contributors, while recognizing the important differences and potential clashes between participatory and representative forms of democracy, ultimately favor participation, emphasizing its capacity to enhance and strengthen representative democracy.
What People are Saying
"The sophisticated yet accessible conceptual framework is excellent, transcending widely held assumptions about the dichotomy between participatory and representative democracy. And in an area where most works focus specifically on one city, or one country, the cross—national comparative approach stands out as distinctive. This book is clearly a significant contribution." -- Jonathan Fox, University of California, Santa Cruz
Chapter List
Preface
1 Participatory Innovation and Representative Democracy in Latin America, Enrique Peruzzotti and Andrew Selee
2 Democratizing Budgetary Decisions and Execution in Brazil: More Participation or Redesign of Formal Institutions? Marcus André Melo
3 The Politics of Institutional Innovation: The Implementation of Participatory Budgeting in the City of Buenos Aires, Enrique Peruzzotti
4 An Alternative to Clientelism? Participatory Innovation in Mexico, Andrew Selee
5 Against All Odds: Participatory Local Governance and the Urban Poor in Chile, Anny Rivera-Ottenberger
6 Decentralization, Local Initiatives, and Citizenship in Bolivia,1994–2004, Roberto Laserna
Contributors
Index