Prospective and Participatory Democracy: Potentialities and Constraints

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the role of social actors in a process of strategic territorial planning and the associated rules of participation, deliberation and distribution of power. The relationship and the fundamental role of foresight in participatory strategic planning at the territorial level is analyzed. We argue that foresight is a reflection on the apprehension of structuring phenomena of complex and unstable reality, which empowers actors to more effective forms of intervention, either by anticipating or undermining some of the major development trends. Starting from the increasing complexity of land management, social transformations and the climate of uncertainty, strategic territorial planning and the prospective approach are considered two sides of the same coin. Foresight methodologies play a key role not only in strategic and participatory planning, but also in the construction of participatory democracy. The importance of motivation for participation in the context of participatory democracy is emphasized, not as an ideological issue but as a requirement of the planning process itself: the implementation of the plan depends on the involvement and voluntary contribution of the actors as well as the mobilization of resources which they have at their disposal to carry out action. We also seek to analyze and discuss the different roles of the protagonists of a strategic game of actors, how actors regulate their relationships, the rules they establish to face the conflicts, according to their own logics, in which they are involved and the inconsistencies that unravel. Given the importance of internal cohesion, mobilization and collective involvement, particular attention is paid to the role of two crucial actors in the whole process: the actor / client and the researcher / scientist / analyst.