16 – Peace, justice and strong institutions
Participatory Budgeting and Local Governance
Participatory budgeting has become a much used tool in the process of creating decentralized states, but what are the possibilities and risks of participatory budgeting from a democratic perspective? In this paper the challenge of creating well-functioning systems for participatory budgeting that combines both efficiency and civic participation is examined by studying local participatory budgeting…
Real Democratization in Cambodia? An Empirical Review of the Potential of a Decentralization Reform
How can a war-torn country rise and in the process create democratic institutions? This paper uses Cambodia as an example and tries to identify some of the key dimensions of the Cambodian decentralization reform. The question in focus, how the process of decentralization and local development is played out in a post-conflict country is thoroughly…
Citizen Engagement, Deliberative Spaces and the Consolidation of a Post-Authoritarian Democracy: The Case of Indonesia
Is there a correlation of strong civil society organizations taking part in a decentralization process and the possibilities that this process will result in a strong deliberative democracy and a well-functioning local government? By presenting different examples of how local CSO:s in post-authoritarian Indonesia engage with the government, the author argues that there has been…
Engaging Civil Society to Promote Democratic Local Governance: Emerging Trends and Policy Implications in Asia
In what way could local CSO:s act in the plausible democratic transformation of a number of Asian Countries? This paper examines in what way civil society affects the decentralization process in Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, the Republic of Korea and the Philippines. By doing so, this publication shed light on the role of CSO:s…