Participatory democracy : the case of parish development committees in Jamaica / Marc Anthony Thomas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thomas, Marc Anthony, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Local government--Jamaica--Citizen participation.

Political participation--Jamaica.

Democracy--Jamaica.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (210 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Jamaica ; Barbados ; Trinidad and Tobago : The University of the West Indies Press, 2021.

Summary:

In Participatory Democracy: The Case of Parish Development Committees in Jamaica, Marc Anthony Thomas expands the existing knowledge on participatory democracy. Parish development committees were established as a means for Jamaicans to inform government policy, and Thomas explores the extent to which supportive institutional, infrastructural and superstructural conditions allow for robust implementation of this democratization initiative. His analysis is bolstered by an appreciation of the emancipatory politics employed by the country's general population since slavery not only to survive oppression, but also to influence the nation's political agenda. Riots during slavery and in the present day, for example, have offered citizens an avenue towards self-determination. The democratization initiative symbolized by parish development committees promotes inclusiveness yet is led predominantly by older, educated middle-class individuals with talents and capacities garnered from several years of experience in various fields. Thomas argues that the opportunity cost of a more inclusive order explains this fact, in that Jamaica's finite resources mean there is limited space for a learning curve and the cash-strapped committees have only been able to survive when their members could help to defray the cost of their operations. By observing more than one hundred hours of parish development committee activities and interviewing sixty key informants and four focus groups, Thomas finds that the emergence, survival and thriving of parish development committees in Jamaica is determined largely by the extent to which emancipatory political tactics are successfully applied by committee stakeholders to combat a number of continuing challenges. His analysis provides a micro-scale view of the interaction of factors that have shaped the power and possibility of Jamaica's democratization initiative.

Contents:

Planting the seed of Jamaica's democracy

The space for and the characteristics of participatory democracy

The people and the paradigm of the PDC process

Rowing against the tide of assumptions : testing the limits of survival and creativity

The future of the selected PDCs and the link with past experiences.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9789766408565

9766408564

OCLC:

1393306434