WP3: Case Studies 

WP3 goal: The main aim is to investigate recent experiments in democratic governance at the local level in order to address the need for creation of arenas open to citizens which are conducive to collective decisions made through public deliberation. 

The general objectives of WP3:

• Gathering existing evidence of urban experiments with new forms of participatory and deliberative democracy.

• Development of local knowledge on citizen-based models for addressing governance gaps, threats of populism and/or challenges of urban transition. 

• Evaluation of transferability of successful experiments among different social, economic and environmental milieus and political contexts

• Analysis of existing knowledge base on governance innovation organised in terms of a division of labour and a horizontal learning process.

• Extensive fieldwork with interviews and surveys

• Identification and comparison of the main drivers conditioning trajectories of governance innovation and institutional change as well as the principal practical lessons that emerge from previous experience.

• Assessing the contribution of participatory and collaborative governance models to achieving economic, social, political and spatial justice

TBD

The initial list of examples of urban experiments:

• civic assemblies – a promising method for developing deliberative democracy (Gdansk);

• participatory budgeting – a participatory democracy tool contentious for having weaknesses aside from multiple strengths (different cities experience);

• deal for communities –a more advanced financial tool for strengthening local communities and building civil society (Wigham);

• Wroclaw Cultural Congress – an innovative initiative of cultural organizations to activate and unite citizens through active participation in cultural events (Wroclaw);

• electoral platforms – a participatory instrument of widening the local political stage and making it more inclusive and accessible (Budapest);

• re-democratization of public spaces – experimental forms of restoring public spaces to citizens and democratically open forms of use (Helsinki, Turku);

• crowdfunding – a mechanism for social financing of independent initiatives and projects aimed at strengthening the democracy;

• ethno-theatre – a narrative intervention for tackling local conflicts and problems (Gdynia, Katowice).