This book is about citizen participation and its effects on local planning and local accountability, showing how participation can improve local government performance. It addresses the rhetoric of citizen participation and its negative effects such as discrimination, exclusions, elite captures, clientelism, and shallow participation. Applying mixed-methods of analysis, the book argues that local government performance depends substantially on circumstances, especially the degree of citizen participation, level of socioeconomic development, and the achieved state of social mobilization. As participation takes place in diverse socioeconomic and cultural settings, merely reforming institutions to make participation more inclusive and democratic alone is not sufficient.
Explorations and Proposals toward Market Socialism and World Government
This book makes a compelling case for misunderstood concepts like market socialism, a Global Marshall Plan, and world government. Blending intellectual and personal history, it is a story of steadfast determination that will resonate with every person with an idealistic vision.
