The purpose of this chapter is to conduct a critical analysis based on the institutional design of the democratic processes of the public sphere and urban spaces in the empowerment of local governments. The approach is a theoretical construction after reviewing some important developments in the issues of the roles of the state, economy, civil society, and the media on the decentralization processes of empowerment of local governments in their public spheres and urban spaces. This critical analysis is sustained on the political ideology, macro institutional design, political leadership, and authority developed by the New Left´s theoretical approach. With this critical analysis, it is intended to further develop the ongoing debate on democratic decentralization and the implications of the roles of the state, economy, civil society, and the media on the public sphere and urban spaces in the empowerment of local governments.
TopIntroduction
The new politics of democracy rely on gaining legitimacy from new democratic spaces outside the formal democratic institutions of government. To achieve this, it is required to improve institutional design of mechanisms and procedures for democratic representativeness and decision making. The analysis of the political ideology, macro institutional design and political leadership and authority is well developed by the New Left´s theoretical approach. The agonistic pluralism argument characterized by a vibrant clash of democratic political positions is advocated by Mouffe (2002: 16).
Analysis of the deliberation processes is concerned with challenging politics and power for democratic politics on deliberative democracy (Mouffe 1999; Young 2000; Dryzek 2000; Avritzer 2002). Deliberative democracy more focused on political practice than on political theory is a contestation political behavior challenging other less democratic behaviors of more powerful political actors. The normative grounding of deliberative democratic theory focusses on communicative interactions to gain consensus and cooperative problem-solving (Habermas 1996; Cohen and Sabel 1997; Fung and Wright 2003). Deliberative democratic theory promotes a deliberative process where the attributes of political expressions of contention and contestation are strengthening the democratic potential. These concepts make debatable and disputed issue in democratic theory (Jones and Gaventa 2002).
Democratic deliberation analysis requires to understand the social and cultural dimensions of political contestation in new democratic spaces. New democratic spaces for political deliberation, is not always rational, where more sites are dedicated to manifest plural expressions of political activism and construction of alliances. Contestation is the core issue of democratic conduct that enables differences of political actors to surface rather than be suppressed.
A legitimate democratic society empowers citizens to enter contestation and negotiation processes of the rules of recognition (Tully 2000:477). Citizenship is essential to the practice of democratic decision-making and resource allocation processes. The status of citizenship, considered as a bundle of rights, conflates with the practice of citizenship (Somers 1993). Localization of democratic decentralization is depending on the agenda and strategy designed and implemented to empower citizenship.
Political philosophy assumes that democratic decentralization is associated to local action and from the pragmatism it is considered that decentralization is more coordinated, connected, and responsive to local strategic action. Despite the increasing programs to foster local democracy and participation of citizens in decision making and democratic decentralization, recent years are marked by an emergency of autochthony and other narrow forms of citizenship (Geschiere and Boone, 2003). Increased participation of population into process of decision making may be limited democratic characteristics in terms of representation and binding (Mosse, 2001).
Inclusive participation of an active citizenship is the foundation of democratic practice, which recognizes the agency of citizens as makers and shapers rather than users and choosers (Cornwall and Gaventa 2000). Under democratic authorities is associated to the residence-based citizenship as the inclusive belonging of population in an integrative space for democratic public interaction. Thus, reinforcing and supporting active, responsible, and engaged citizenship along with responsive, inclusive, and caring democratic governments.
This is an approach far away from the instrumental reason know by economists as rational choice, an economic liberalism ideological fiction of reducing the public sphere to some existing democratic institutions.