Czech postcommunist trouble with participatory governance. Toward an analysis of the cultural agency of policy discourses.

The article uses the postcommunist context to rethink the argumentative arena of current participatory governance. While citizen empowerment is a crucial component of participatory governance, it has not received much attention in either the policy or the research of the CEE region. Comparing two Cz...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Link(s) zu Dokument(en):IHS Publikation
1. Verfasser: Durnova, Anna
Format: Article in Academic Journal PeerReviewed
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Taylor & Francis 2021
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:The article uses the postcommunist context to rethink the argumentative arena of current participatory governance. While citizen empowerment is a crucial component of participatory governance, it has not received much attention in either the policy or the research of the CEE region. Comparing two Czech prominent public controversies, the analysis reveals a mediating rejection of citizen empowerment because it is seen as being fundamentally opposed to modernization. Modernization is a powerful narrative justifying the postcommunist transformation as a supreme policy goal, being used as an argument for the technocratic style of governing. The analysis thus suggests that attention to cultural contingency of participatory governance is needed, and it proposes analysis of the cultural agency of policy discourses. (author's abstract)