Urban 171

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Urban 171

• Governing the City

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Governance

• The process of deciding city policies and how
  they will be implemented.
• 2 key questions
• 1. Who should make these decisions?
• 2. Who does make these decisions?
• In a democracy, the answer to 1 is the
  people, through some sort of citizen
  participation. But this begs the question--How?

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Classical Liberalisms Impact on Modern
Democratic Theory

• Humans are fundamentally rational.
• Humans are fundamentally self-interested.

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Elite v. Mass Theories

• Different views about the degree to which humans
  are self-interested.
• Resulting in different positions regarding the
  need for increased citizen participation.

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Elite Theorists Protective v. Pluralist

• Negative View of Human Nature
• Distrust Efforts to Increase Citizen
  Participation for Fear of 3 Deadly Sins
• 1. Conflict
• 2. Alienation
• 3. Delay

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Protective Democrats

• Role of Government is to protect individual
  liberty (property) elites need to protect
  against too much mass participation.
• Founding Fathers--Madison, Federalist, 10
• Problem of factions Cure?
• A. Remove the Cause Cant, due to nature of
  humans
• B. Control the Effects Constitutional Framework

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Pluralist Democrats

• Average Citizen is apathetic and uninterested in
  governance and politics anyway. So, liberty is
  fostered through the competition among interest
  groups.
• Pluralism of Elites

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Mass Democrats Developmental v. Participatory
Theorists

• Positive View of Human Nature
• Trust in the average citizen to make decisions

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Developmental Theorists

• Citizens can be educated and can develop a civic
  virtue which permits them to move beyond their
  own self-interests and consider the public
  (common) interests.
• John Dewey We learn by doing, so we can
  develop our democratic (small d skills if the
  system is structured so that we can practice
  participation.

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Participatory Theorists

• For citizens to really move beyond pure
  self-interest, need to have many opportunities to
  participate.
• Critique of the common definition of
  participation--voting.
• Ben Barber Thin Democracy develops from a
  limited understanding of shared interests and
  common ground.
• Democracy of Strangers!

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• Solution to this dilemma is to provide
  opportunities for citizens to engage in
  face-to-face meetings and talk to each other
  about politics, issues, common interests, and
  governance.
• According to Ben Barber, this promotes a strong
  democracy in which the likelihood that community
  interests will be seriously considered is greater.

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Upshot for Urban Politics/Governance?

• Mass theorists have argued that city
  neighborhoods provide the unique opportunity to
  encourage the development of structures that
  would promote this type of strong democracy,
  and in the end help restore the role of the
  average citizens