Democracia Participativa, Decentralizacion Politica y Regimen Municipal
Palabras clave:
Democraia, Representacion politica, Participacion politica, Descentralizacion politica, Gobierno local. Democracy, Political representation, Political participation, Political decentralization, Local government.Resumen
RESUMEN
El autor analiza el concepto de democracia participativa en el contexto de la descentralizacion politica y de la municipalizacion. La democracia participativa no se puede planear como sustituto de la democracia representativa. Esta se puede perfeccionar con la inclusion de mecanismos de democracia directa (referendos) pero estos no pueden sustituir la representacion. la verdadera posibilidad de participacion politica solo puede darse a nivel de los municipios o gobiernos locales, cuando estan colocados cerca del ciudadano como consecuencia de procesos de descentralizacion. Por ello, para que la democracia llegue a ser participativa, hay que descentralizar el poder, revalorizando el regimen local y el pequeño municipio rural. En definitiva, no habiendo autocracias descentralizadas, solo las democracias se descentralizan.
ABSTRACT
The author study the concept of participatory democracy in the context of the process of political decentralization and municipalization. Participatory democracy cannot be a substitute of representative democracy. Representation can be improved by means of direct democracy mechanisms, such as the referendums, but these cannot substitute representative democracy. The real possibility for a political participation is at the local (municipal) level of goverments, when they are located near the citizen, as a consequence of a political decentralization process. That is why, for a democracy to by a participatory one, it is necessary to decentralize power, giving new value to local governments and to the small rural ones. In the end, only democracies can be, no decentralized autocracies exists.