The discourse of governance and development practitioners continues to embrace community participation and community empowerment as an elementary means of building local capacity for poverty reduction, development and change at the local level. This article is a review of the decentralization...

Governments at central and sub-national levels are increasingly pursuing participatory mechanisms in a bid to improve governance and service delivery. This has been largely in the context of decentralization reforms in which central governments transfer (share) political, administrative, fiscal...

Local governments : a global presence / Richard Kerley, Joyce Liddle, Pam Dunning -- Local electoral systems / Michael Cole -- Local political leadership : the voters or councillors : who chooses who governs? / Colin Copus -- Traditional leaders and local government in Pacific Island countries /...

This case study investigates under which conditions ICTs can play a role in fostering the empowerment of rural communities to fully participate in the decision-making processes of local governments. The analysis using empirical evidence from rural communities in Bolivia focuses hereby on the...