Counter-governance: Citizen participation beyond collaboration
Counter-governance: Citizen participation beyond collaboration
The theory and practice of urban governance in recent years has undergone both a collaborative and participatory turn. The strong connection between collaboration and participation has meant that citizen participation in urban governance has been conceived in a very particular way: as varying levels of partnership between state actors and citizens. This over-focus on collaboration has led to: 1) a dearth of proposals in theory and practice for citizens to engage oppositionally with institutions; 2) the miscasting of agonistic opportunities for participation as forms of collaboration; 3) an inability to recognise the irruption of agonistic practices into participatory procedures. This article attempts to expand the conception of participatory urban governance by adapting Rosanvallon’s (2008) three democratic counter-powers-prevention, oversight and judgement-to consider options for institutionalising agonistic participatory practices. It argues that these countergovernance processes would more fully realise the inclusion agenda that underpins the participatory governance project.
Agonism, Collaborative governance, Counter-democracy, Counter-governance, Participation, Participatory governance, Urban governance
180-188
Dean, Rikki John
a830dbdb-7c38-41d3-9d18-02c335d645cb
Dean, Rikki John
a830dbdb-7c38-41d3-9d18-02c335d645cb
Dean, Rikki John
(2018)
Counter-governance: Citizen participation beyond collaboration.
Politics and Governance, 6 (1), .
(doi:10.17645/pag.v6i1.1221).
Abstract
The theory and practice of urban governance in recent years has undergone both a collaborative and participatory turn. The strong connection between collaboration and participation has meant that citizen participation in urban governance has been conceived in a very particular way: as varying levels of partnership between state actors and citizens. This over-focus on collaboration has led to: 1) a dearth of proposals in theory and practice for citizens to engage oppositionally with institutions; 2) the miscasting of agonistic opportunities for participation as forms of collaboration; 3) an inability to recognise the irruption of agonistic practices into participatory procedures. This article attempts to expand the conception of participatory urban governance by adapting Rosanvallon’s (2008) three democratic counter-powers-prevention, oversight and judgement-to consider options for institutionalising agonistic participatory practices. It argues that these countergovernance processes would more fully realise the inclusion agenda that underpins the participatory governance project.
Text
PaG 6 (1) - Counter-Governance_ Citizen Participation Beyond Collaboration
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 26 December 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 3 April 2018
Keywords:
Agonism, Collaborative governance, Counter-democracy, Counter-governance, Participation, Participatory governance, Urban governance
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Local EPrints ID: 503500
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/503500
ISSN: 2183-2463
PURE UUID: 04b374cc-e051-4129-8758-5ac824f6a0b4
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Date deposited: 04 Aug 2025 16:46
Last modified: 22 Aug 2025 02:43
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Author:
Rikki John Dean
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