Governance and Democracy katarsis survey Paper

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on the one hand and on the other hand, the communitarian discourse also calls for the 

emergence of a kind of entrepreneurial spirit, where individuals are responsible 

 

to actively include themselves into the labour market, instead of passively relying on the 

welfare state. This strategy, Hager identifies to be part of the ideology of the EU-Lisbon 

Agenda, has been referred to as “workfare” (Peck 2001). 

Nevertheless, the communitarian agenda also contains important traits concerning possible 

socially creative strategies. For this sake, Laville’s (2005) differentiation between democratic 

solidarity and forms of philantrophy or charity seems promising. The democratic character is 

thus reinforced by reciprocity and equality of the participants and not by relations of personal 

dependence which are often being (re-)established if private agents take over or take part in 

the management of formerly state-owned services. Laville also relates to the field of economic 

democracy, which would require forms of business organization which are internally 

democratic as well as the chances for the citizens to participate on an equal basis concerning 

their economic power. This leads to the notion of public spaces (Habermas 1962/1990; 

Avritzer 2002) and associated concepts of participatory governance (Grote/Gbikpi 2002; 

Fung/Wright 2003). These concepts point towards the notion of citizen’s governance, standing 

somehow in opposition to governance by command, but need to be critically re-examined to 

form a basis for socially innovative practices towards democratic governance. In the mode of 

governance by command, the so-called public sector has been managed by state bureaucrats in 

a hierarchical way, following roughly the concept of Max Weber (1922/1980) which 

emphasizes impersonal hierarchies

4

. Contrary to socialist and anarcho-syndicalist tendencies 

of the interwar-period – e.g. the Austro-Marxists (Bauer 1919/1976b; 1919/1976a; 

Bottomore/Goode 1978) and the Dutch Anton Pannekoek (1950/2003) – who distinguished 

the “socialisation” of the means of production from state management of the latter, post-World 

War social democracy turned to a Keynesian strategy, where key industries and services were 

nationalized (Przeworski 1980). Nicos Poulantzas (1978: 79) criticized this strategy heavily as 

“techno-bureaucratic statism of the experts”, which alienates the people from the state. This 

was the basis for the criticism of the social movements during the 1970s against state 

involvement which was perceived as patriarchal and authoritarian. The liberal offensive to 

privatize formerly state-run enterprises and services only had to simplify and channel them 

into the distinction between state vs. private property or service delivery – so market-based 

and multi-lateral governance (cf. tab. 2) arrangements were installed. Today, experiments of 

self-managed service delivery can be seen again as a creative reaction against exclusionary 

dynamics, this time created by privatization of formerly state-run services. This might improve 

 

4

   This leads to more accountability as decisions are taken on a technocratic basis – a trend which is also visible in current reforms of New 

Public Management. According to Kieser (2002) this strengthens charismatic leaders, who link bureaucracy and society, fostering 

de-democratization. 

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the quality of life at the same time as it teaches civic virtues. Pointing to the notion of citizen’s 

governance, these practices represent interesting socially creative strategies, to be analyzed in 

case studies in this report, as well as in WP 1.1-1.4 of KATARSIS. 

The case studies for the field of governance and democracy in the following chapters will 

show the potentials and problems of these socially creative strategies in different contexts and 

forms.  

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3

3

.

.

 

 

C

C

A

A

S

S

E

E

 

 

S

S

T

T

U

U

D

D

I

I

E

E

S

S

 

 

C

C

O

O

N

N

C

C

E

E

R

R

N

N

I

I

N

N

G

G

 

 

S

S

O

O

C

C

I

I

A

A

L

L

L

L

Y

Y

 

 

C

C

R

R

E

E

A

A

T

T

I

I

V

V

E

E

 

 

S

S

T

T

R

R

A

A

T

T

E

E

G

G

I

I

E

E

S

S

                                                     

 

 

The above mentioned general dynamics can be witnessed in the following case studies in very 

different ways. The case study of Barcelona deals with the territorial employment pacts, being 

implemented to tackle the problems related to social exclusion by unemployment in 

multilateral governance settings which have the possibility of leading to constellations where 

democratic governance settings seem to be possible to emerge. The cases of Denmark and of 

participatory governance in Porto Alegre are examples of participatory governance initiated by 

local governments. They point out possibilities and problems associated with attempts towards 

democratic citizen’s governance at the municipal scale. The case study of the Welsh 

cooperative will reflect upon the possibilities for socio-economic democracy, which deals with 

socio-economic citizenship and thus with democratic citizen’s governance on the local scale in 

the productive sphere. 

3.1. 

The Territorial Employment Pacts in Spain

5

 

In 1997 the European Union launched the European Employment Strategy (EES), based on 

entrepreneurship, employability, adaptability and equal opportunities which has incentivated 

new forms of governance in terms of employment policies, integration subnational levels in 

the policy-making, as well as civil society. The Committee of Regions and the European 

Commission created a new pilot program, the Territorial Pacts for Employment. The original 

idea was to motivate the creation of wide agreements for employment in subnational territories 

that were undergoing de-industrialization processes or were suffering a long term crisis. 96 

different sub-national territories were selected. One of the selected participating territories in 

the pilot programme was the County of Vallès Occidental, where the different actors started a 

wide agreement with EU funds. The county of Vallès Occidental has as main characteristics a 

small and medium enterprises network with a strong industrial profile. Until recent times, the 

industrial basis of the County of Vallès Occidental has been the textile industries. Nowadays 

the crisis of the textile sector is creating employment problems in the region, which is 

undergoing a process of transformation of its economy (Hermosilla 2003). As in many other 

urban contexts, the strategy towards a knowledge society is becoming dominant and has non-

desired effects such as social exclusion and unemployment. 

 

5

   This chapter was written by Marc Pradel (Universitat de Barcelona). 

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