Participatory Bias and Participatory Neighborhood Governance: Reanalyzing the Most-Likely Case of the Stockholm Neighborhood Renewal Program

《Participatory Bias and Participatory Neighborhood Governance: Reanalyzing the Most-Likely Case of the Stockholm Neighborhood Renewal Program》

打印

作者: Nils Hertting

来源: URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW,Vol.60,Issue2,P.

语言: 英文

关键字

作者单位

摘要: IntroductionThe arguments for participation in revitalization of poor neighborhoods are not only long-lasting, but also many and different. For decades (Wilson 1963), advocates of participation have claimed that citizen engagement not only deepens democracy, increases legitimacy, and harmonizes conflicts, but also makes implementation more effective and increases problem-solving capacity (Fung 2004; Wagenaar 2007; Farrelly 2009; Durose and Lowndes 2010; Parés, Bonet-Martí and Martí-Costa 2012; Skelcher, Sullivan and Jeffares 2013; De Graaf, Van Hulst and Michels 2015).However, despite repeated efforts to realize such promises, criticism of participatory governance in general and neighborhood participatory governance in particular is persistent (Taylor 2007; Walker, McQuarrie and Lee 2015; Poletta 2016; Glimmerveen, Ybema and Nies 2022). In the present article, I focus on one of the issues critics point to: Winners in local participatory governance are the privileged, those who already have resources and have access to power, and neighborhood participatory mechanisms therefore increase differences between citizens who have opportunities to affect their living situation and those who do not (e.g., Theiss-Morse and Hibbing 2005; Fiorina 1999). In the article, I refer to this position as the participatory bias argument.According to the most radical version of the participatory bias argument, participatory arrangements are not only insufficient for redistribution of power, but also intentional instruments meant to give a human face to policies that disadvantage the poor (Baiocchi and Ganuza 2015; Walker, McQuarrie and Lee 2015; Taylor 2007). Even though residents are occasionally capable of affecting minor issues, according to this version of the argument they are intentionally kept at a distance from any real impact. Participatory governance, it is suggested, is an instrument of “de-politicization” (Boussaguet 2016; Sørensen and Torfing 2017) and serves elitist purposes by design (Parkins and Sinclair 2014).A less cynical, yet still skeptical, argument claims that participatory neighborhood governance is captured by the privileged, not by intentional design, but by virtue of its process. According to this version of the argument, participatory governance is a demanding form of participation (Fiorina 1999), which unintentionally creates bias in contexts of unequal distribution of the resources needed to participate effectively, that is, time, knowledge, and status (Navarro and Font 2013; Theiss-Morse and Hibbing 2005; Verba, Schlozman and Brady 2002; Melo and Baiocchi 2006; Parvin 2021).In the present article, I will not examine the actual intentions of governmental invitations to participatory neighborhood governance, but the effects in relation to bias in recruitment, participation and outputs. The article re-analyzes a survey-based case study of neighborhood revitalization in Stockholm, Sweden (Danielsson, Gustafsson and Hertting 2016), the aim being to test the participatory bias argument in a most-likely case (Gerring 2007; Eckstein 1975), to suggest a mechanism-based account of the somewhat paradoxical pattern of bias and empowerment observed in the case, and to contribute to the recent literature on the paradoxes and ambivalences of participatory governance (Bobbio 2019; Poletta 2016; Ganuza, Baiocchi and Summers 2016).The case of the Stockholm Neighborhood Renewal Program (SNRP) was characterized by self-selected participation and demanding face-to-face discussions under ambiguous rules-in-use in a local context of social inequality. In light of previous literature and theory, it therefore belongs to a category of cases in which one would expect strong bias-inducing mechanisms to play out. While it is incorrect to state that no bias was found, it is fair to state that the case nuances the participatory bias argument and provides opportunities for theory development (Levy 2008). Hence, by scrutinizing a most-likely case for bias, the article suggests how and why, under certain conditions, initial bias may actually render empowering outcomes in terms of increased political impact, capacity, and efficacy among the poor.1In the two following sections, I discuss the existing literature on participatory bias, develop theoretical expectations about the conditions that induce bias in participatory governance more specifically, and make analytical distinctions for a more elaborated analysis of participatory governance bias. I then present the most-likely case study design and the survey data it is based on. Drawing on the conceptual framework, the empirical part of the article is structured according to a process-oriented template related to: (1) recruitment to; (2) activities and opportunities in; and (3) impact, civil skills, and efficacy derived from participation. The empirical analysis is concluded in a fourth section, demonstrating that tendencies toward empowerment of the marginalized in relation to civic capacity and efficacy become visible over time, despite conditions of a most-likely case for bias. Relating to arguments on “spill-over effects” (Altschuler and Corrales 2012) and “concentric circles” (Fagotto and Fung 2006), the final section draws on the process-oriented design and suggests how participatory bias in the early phases may actually produce empowering outcomes in later stages. Hence, the article contributes to a growing body of literature that aims to understand the paradoxes and ambivalences of participatory governance (Koch 2013; Poletta 2016; Ganuza, Baiocchi and Summers 2016; Bobbio 2019).