Citizen Participation in a Mediated Age: Neighbourhood Governance in The Netherlands

Justus Uitermark and Jan Willem Duyvendak

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2008, vol. 32, issue 1, 114-134

Abstract: Abstract Two developments — the fragmentation of governance and the mediatization of politics — lead governmental organizations to engage in discursive and institutional competition. These new circumstances also drastically change the relationship of governmental organizations to clients, target groups and the citizenry as a whole. We empirically investigate these changes through a study of a privately funded community development organization in the Netherlands, the Neighbourhood Alliance. In this case, it is no longer the citizenry that articulates a public discourse, but a public discourse that, through the mediation of an institutional entrepreneur like the Neighbourhood Alliance, stipulates what type of participation is appropriate. This development raises the critical issue of the nature and mechanisms of democratic engagement in a fragmented, mediatized polity. Résumé Deux évolutions — la fragmentation de la gouvernance et la médiatisation de la politique — poussent les organismes gouvernementaux à une concurrence symbolique. Ces contexte nouveau change aussi radicalement la relation de ces organismes avec les usagers, les groupes ciblés et les citoyens dans leur ensemble. Nous examinons ces transformations à travers une étude empirique d'une structure néerlandaise à fonds privés de développement de quartiers, Wijkalliantie (alliance de quartier). En l'occurrence, ce ne sont plus les habitants qui déclinent un discours public, mais un discours public qui, par le biais d'une entreprise institutionnelle comme l'alliance de quartier, spécifie le type de participation approprié. Cette évolution soulève la question cruciale de la nature et des mécanismes de l'engagement démocratique dans un fonctionnement politique fragmenté et médiatisé.

Date: 2008
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