LOCAL GOVERNANCE, IDENTITY AND SOCIAL CAPITAL: A FRAMEWORK FOR ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM

Local governments are increasingly seen as key facilitators of networked community governance, enabling collaborative local action. A better understanding local government’s role in enhancing citizen participation is necessary. This new agenda implies an important expansion of the notion of inclusion in political decisions and relies on the adequate institutional design. Although scholarship emphasizes individuals’ engagement, it lacks the recognition of community’s identity heterogeneity. We advance a framework that takes into consideration the fact that these assumptions demand a new way of looking at scale uncertainty and of what defines social ties and its implications on policy and institutional design.