Participation, Social Cohesion and the Challenges in the Governance Process: An Analysis of a Post-World War II Neighbourhood in the Netherlands

Abstract

In the past 5 years, several scientific articles have been written on the theme of social cohesion in urban neighbourhoods. In most cases this literature focuses on the loss of social cohesion in these areas. In addition, many problems, such as a declining quality of life, physical deterioration, and social isolation have been related to a lack of social cohesion. Another set of articles has increased our knowledge on urban governance. While this work adds considerably to our general understanding of the changing role of the organization of urban social policy and its effects on neighbourhoods, there has been little attempt to date to analyse how policy-makers experience this relationship. This experience is crucial, because it is the basis of policy practice and action. The first aim here is therefore to analyse to what extent policy-makers experience an effect of participation on social cohesion, although the number of participants is relatively low. The empirical findings show that policy-makers do experience a positive effect of participation on the various dimensions of social cohesion. The second aim of the paper is to explain the level of participation by evaluating the governance process. The analyses indicate that the policy-makers face challenges related to the diversity of the population in the participation process, as well as reconciling different needs within decision-making processes.

Notes

UGIS, Urban Development Programmes, Urban Governance, Social Inclusion and Sustainability, has been financed within the Fifth Framework Programme on Targeted Socio-economic Research of the European Union.

Of course there is a possibility that the residents feel they are really not interested in participation. However, as John Gaventa explains in his book Power and Powerlessness (1980), this may also be the “third face of power”, in addition to the first two faces of power as identified by Bachrach and Baratz in 1962 (coercive and blocking power). In the third face of power, social relationships and political ideology are structured over the long term in such a way that one party remains dominant over the other. Although the dominated party may rebel against the dominator, the dominator ignores the pressure for change because they can withstand such pressures. In the long run, people may stop fighting as they become and remain alienated from politics and are quiescent (passive) as a result.