Neighborhood Assemblies
The Neighborhood Assemblies began reuniting in 2001 as a form of response to the social, political, economic and representative crisis that strongly affected Argentinian politics, economy and society. They consisted of more or less spontaneous meetings among the inhabitants of each neighborhood, who were summoned to discuss and find solutions to a variety of issues. In principle, they responded to a territorial division and were based on horizontal rules of organization and a system of direct democracy. Their main goal was the deliberation and decision-making on initiatives to solve local problems. In some municipalities (such as in the city of La Plata), assemblies are recognized to date and act as articulating agents in other stages of the implementation of local public policies, for example being the scenario of participatory budget assemblies.
Institutional design
Formalization: is the innovation embedded in the constitution or legislation, in an administrative act, or not formalized at all?
Frequency: how often does the innovation take place: only once, sporadically, or is it permanent or regular?
Mode of Selection of Participants: is the innovation open to all participants, access is restricted to some kind of condition, or both methods apply?
Type of participants: those who participate are individual citizens, civil society organizations, private stakeholders or a combination of those?
Decisiveness: does the innovation takes binding, non-binding or no decision at all?
Co-governance: is there involvement of the government in the process or not?
- Formalization
- not backed by constitution nor legislation, nor by any governmental policy or program
- Frequency
- sporadic
- Mode of selection of participants
- open
- Type of participants
- citizens civil society
- Decisiveness
- democratic innovation yields a binding decision
- Co-Governance
- no
Means
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Ends
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