By Paulo Muzell: The idea of banning the circulation of human-powered carts (HPC) and animal-powered carts (APC) is old in Porto Alegre. Some attempts to limit its circulation had already been tried decades ago, fortunately without success. The government Fogaça-Fortunati (Fo-Fo, a conservative coalition: 2005-2016), however, finally succeeded. Even though on winding lines, it is […]
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Se a semente não morre, não dá fruto
Por Sérgio Baierle: “O recente outono brasileiro mostrou, além da indistinção política e do poder das ruas, a falência múltipla da parafernália participativa no Brasil. Há muito tempo o presidencialismo de coalizão, junto com os simulacros de participação embutidos em conferências, conselhos e orçamentos participativos tornaram-se sistematicamente hidropônicos. Longe, muito longe da vida real.” – […]
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Vale tudo pela felicidade de uma criança…
Um exemplo de trocas assimétricas (post anterior) – Por Javier Auyero: (…) No Dia das Crianças, Matilde e seus seguidores organizaram três atos em diferentes áreas de Vila Paraíso. Às dez da manhã, Matilde, Adolfo, Pedro e Paco, Mimí, Ingrid e Marcela chegam à UB de Cholo, na Quinta Rua. Adolfo veio na camioneta, junto […]
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O clientelismo e o exercicio do poder no Brasil
Por Paulo M. d’Avila Filho: “A única possibilidade de eliminação das trocas políticas assimétrico-clientelistas de um contexto social qualquer é na imaginação de uma ordem social que elevasse ao limite a máxima próxima da fabulação rousseauniana – na qual a vontade geral ou a vontade do demos e a autoridade política são uma e mesma […]
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Entrevista: OP agoniza em Porto Alegre
Entrevista ao Comitê Popular da Copa em Porto Alegre: “Porto Alegre é conhecida mundialmente por ser a cidade da participação popular, dos Fóruns Sociais. Mas na avaliação do cientista político Sérgio Baierle, ativista da ONG Cidade, atualmente trata-se de uma participação cívico-folclórica, um ritual identitário sem maiores consequências. Assim como ocorre o acampamento gaudério no Parque da Harmonia ou o […]
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The Microfinance Illusion
By Milford Bateman and Ha-Joon Chang: “The logic is well known. Universal social welfare systems are being dismantled under IFI guidance, secure public employment opportunities are rapidly disappearing, and formal sector employment are an increasing rarity too. Nevertheless, the hope is that the microenterprise sector can engage the most articulate and vocal of the poor, […]
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Crise do sujeito, otimismo cruel e exclusão participativa
Por Sérgio G. Baierle: Discuto aqui a crise do sujeito nos movimentos populares urbanos e seus territórios – favelas e vilas populares sobretudo –, à luz da mutação de suas condições de reprodução social, as quais tinham por base o que venho atualmente chamando de paradigma do otimismo cruel (as contradições do desejo de modernidade). […]
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Government and Community Development in Ireland: The Contested Subjects of Professionalism and Expertise
By Rosie R. Meade: [Extract] The hegemonisation of partnership obscured fundamental contradictions in Irish society. It implied that structurally created polarities and hierarchies could be ignored in the interests of consensus; that political concerns could be treated as technical hitches; that competing sectors were equals in the processes of policy making. As it facilitated and […]
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Guardians of the Bourgeois City: Citizenship, Public Space, and Middle-Class Activism in Mumbai
By Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria: [Abstract] This article examines the new phenomenon of “citizens’ groups” in contemporary Mumbai, India, whose activities are directed at making the city’s public spaces more orderly. Recent scholarship on Mumbai’s efforts to become a “global” city has pointed to the removal of poor populations as an instance of neoliberal governmentality as […]
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Participatory Budgeting: Space, Difference and Governmentality across Buenos Aires
By Ryan Centner: [Abstract] Techniques of absence describe some of the potentially anti-deliberative practices that haunt recently widespread participation-based governance schemes. Techniques of absence remove certain kinds of people – on a spatialised basis – from crucial ‘democratic’ conversations. To illustrate these, I use ethnographic accounts from the implementation of a citywide participatory budgeting programme in three neighbourhoods across Buenos Aires, […]
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“A World Class City of Your Own!”: Civic Governmentality in Chennai, India
By Rowan Ellis [EXCERPTS] Specifically I focus on the practices of public consultation in Chennai, India and highlight the discursive function of the “world-class city” as it articulates and legitimates emerging paradigms in urban development. (…) The suggestion put forth by Birkinshaw and Harris (2009, 4) is that “the world-class city is an urban imaginary that further manufactures and normalizes […]
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The populist dance of Participatory Budgeting numbers in Porto Alegre
By Sérgio Baierle: Every year is the same civic governmentality routine. The local government begins the Participatory Budgeting cycle with a fireworks show. The real content of participation doesn’t matter. The show is the government. The measure of success for Participatory Budgeting (PB), as stated in the multi-year plan, is solely the number of participants in the assemblies. In […]
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A miséria participativa e a participação miserável
Crítica do orçamento participativo – Pelo Grupo Fim da Linha: Em Porto Alegre, o assim chamado Orçamento Participativo (OP) ocupa o centro de debates, brigas e xingamentos, já virou ponto de parada turística de excursões de europeus, e foi o principal motivo da escolha de Porto Alegre como sede do Forum Social Mundial. O OP, […]
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Theses on the New European Fascism
An anticipatory paper of Paolo Virno: [excerpts] 1. At the turn of the century, European fascism is the twin brother, which is to say the terrifying “double,” of the most radical instances of freedom and community that arise in the crisis of the labor-based society. It is the malignant caricature of what men and women […]
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Que reste-t-il de l’expérience pionnière de Porto Alegre ?
Par Simon Langelier (pour Le Monde Diplomatique): Emblématique du potentiel démocratique des collectivités locales, le budget participatif de Porto Alegre a ouvert la voie à des expériences sociales et politiques jusque-là inédites dans le monde. S’il a montré qu’une autre répartition des pouvoirs entre citoyens et institutions était viable, il doit désormais affronter le risque […]
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