Traditional vs. Participatory Planning
- Centralised (from the center to the periphery)
- Vertical and imposed (from the top to the bottom)
- Technical (done by experts)
- Done by sector or industry
- Short term (focused on annual budgets)
- Done to meet legal requirements (what matters is compliance)
- Prioritises sector or industry investment
- Assigns who is responsible for what task but does not assume responsibility
- Homogenising and unifying
- Excluding
- Authoritarian
- Distances State and Civil Society
- Recognises a certain population as an object that will benefit from the plan
- Responds to an intervening/controlling State
- Is ignorant of the conditions specific to each location
- Creates lack of confidence in institutions
- Promotes confrontation and the imposition of power
- Decreases manageability
Participatory Planning:
- Decentralised (from the periphery to the center)
- Horisontal and agreed upon (from the bottom to the top)
- Dialogue-based (promoting discussion of different knowledges)
- Integral, considers the whole picture
- Long term (focused on building a vision of the future)
- Is seen as a real necessity (what matters is the content)
- Prioritises social investment
- Assigns responsibilities and social commitment
- Recognises diversity and respects differences
- Inclusive
- Democratic
- Brings State and Civil Society closer together
- Recognises social actors as active subjects in their own development
- Encourages a facilitating State
- Is based on a knowledge of the concrete and particular conditions of that location
- Builds relationships of confidence
- Promotes tolerance and living together peacefully
- Recovers manageability
Translated from La Iniciativa de Comunicación - click here for the Spanish version.
Comments
Traditional vs. Participatory Planning
You are describing two ideal types, neither one of which could ever be found in their pure form in the real world. When you draw up lists of opposite characteristics and assign them to two categories you should warn the reader that you are presenting ideal forms of participation, one good and one bad. Most participatory projects are mixes of both sets of attributes, and include other characteristics not mentioned such as conflict, authoritarian leadership, inability to reach a consensus, and so forth. It would benefit us all if you would present research results from one or more projects that describes them in terms of all of these attributes, plus the attributes that the participants think are important as well. Some groups, for example, expect and like strong authoritarian leadership; others may prefer that everyone fend for themselves and the community should mind its own business.
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