Institutional and citizen perspectives on the process of institutionalization of participation. A multiple case study in the south of Ecuador

Linked to an international comparative investigation at the Latin American level supported by CLACSO, in the case of Ecuador, the institutional and citizen analysis of the functioning of citizen participation is proposed to evaluate the progress of democratic quality from the relevant guidelines set by the Constitution of 2008. The concern of how much creation of regulations, institutions, programs and mechanisms has transcended in a real improvement of the participation of citizenship in public life decisions The present investigation. Collection of information both at the documentary level (registration and reports), qualitative (interviews and discussion groups to officials, politicians and citizenship), as well as participatory through a participatory process that evaluates and proposes from the citizenship about the practice of local citizen participation, will be generated and contrasted relevant information that shed light on the situation of the current democratic quality of Ecuador and its possible ways of improvement. As results, a diverse range of these will be obtained: together with diverse publications (indexed articles and book/s chapter), a methodological guide will be developed as a tool usable by the Ecuadorian municipalities after their experimentation in the 4 diverse cases of study that are proposed: Cuenca, Machala, Macas and Cañar; Together with them, they will participate through papers and debate forum organization within the framework of the IAP World Congress (Cartagena de Indias, June 2017), as well as a participated citizen program that is proposed to negotiate with the local authorities of the GAD of Cuenca as an organizational citizen - propositional of democratic practice in dialogue with the institutions in charge.

15th UNIVERSITY RESEARCH COMPETITION