The Promise of Participation Experiments in Participatory Governance in Honduras and Guatemala

Political scientists have long wondered whether civic participation can have spillover effects – that is, whether civic participation in one particular domain of public life can lead to more participation in other areas. This book argues that participation can indeed be generative. New participants in participatory governance initiatives can acquire new skills, apply them to new areas of their lives, and join new organizations, even in very poor regions. The evidence is based on a large survey – among the broadest in its class – of participants in community-managed schools (CMS) in rural Honduras and Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, together with case studies and historical institutional analysis. This study is thus more optimistic about the promise of participation than other studies. While it recognizes that participatory arenas are often constrained by features of program design, local context, and national political problems, this book shows that participation is not a dead-end affair. Participation can breed new and unexpected forms of civicness, even in the most unlikely settings.

Daniel Altschuler holds his doctorate in Politics from the University of Oxford, UK, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He is the author of articles in Comparative Political Studies and the Comparative Education Review. He has also published widely in non-academic publications, including The Christian Science Monitor, The Nation, Americas Quarterly, CNN, Foreign Policy, Newsday, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Dissent.

Javier Corrales is professor of Political Science at Amherst College, Amherst, USA. He is the co-author of U.S.-Venezuela Relations since the 1990s: Coping with Midlevel Security Threats (Routledge, 2013), and co-author of Dragon in the Tropics: Hugo Chávez and the Political Economy of Revolution in Venezuela (Brookings Institution Press, 2011). He is also the co-editor of The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America: A Reader on GLBT Rights (Pittsburgh University Press, 2010), and author of Presidents Without Parties: the Politics of Economic Reform in Argentina and Venezuela in the 1990s (Penn State University Press, 2002).

List of Tables and Figures
Preface and Acknowledgments
PART I: THE RISE OF PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE
1. Introduction: The Promise of Participation
2. The Rise of Participatory Governance
3. The Rise of Community Managed Schools: Push and Pull Factors
PART II: SPILLOVER EFFECTS
4. Looking for Evidence: Survey Design, Methodological Issues, and First Clues
5. Stimulating Participation: Individual Inputs, State Inputs, and Context
6. The Case Studies: Field Work, Methodological Issues, and New Clues
7. Exogenous Factors and Spillovers: The Role of the State
8. Endogenous Factors and Spillovers: Time Commitment and Internal Democracy
PART III: OBSTACLES TO SPILLOVERS
9. Obstacles to Spillovers
10. Political Obstacles: Patronage and Polarization
11. The Impact of Patronage and Polarization on Participation and Program Survival
PART IV: CONCLUSION
12. The Limits and Limitations of Spillovers
13. Conclusion
Appendices