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Citizen participation and its impact on the

management model of the decentralized

autonomous municipal government of Quevedo

Participacion ciudadana y su incidencia en el modelo de

gestion del gobierno autonomo descentralizado municipal

de Quevedo

Oscar Alberto Gallardo Toapanta

Marlon Astudillo Lindao

Guerra Cuenca Feliberto Fernando

Vaca Quiñonez Xiomara

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research is to evaluate citizen

participation that allows the implementation of a new

management model of the Municipality of Canton

Quevedo, where there is a more proactive

citizenship in the formulation, planning, execution

and control of public policies, the research will detect

the shortcomings of neighborhood leaders in citizen

participation. The universe of the research will be

through a census of 112 presidents of neighborhood

councils in the different urban parishes of Quevedo

Canton and also the mayor, councilors and officials

of the Municipal Decentralized Autonomous

Government of Quevedo Canton. Inductive and

deductive methods will be used to obtain the

information. The results will allow identifying the key

to improve the performance of neighborhood

* Master's Degree, Universidad Técnica Estatal de Quevedo, Master's

Program in Local Development, Quevedo, Ecuador,

ogallardo@uteq.edu.ec, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4110-3391

* Master's Degree, Universidad Técnica Estatal de Quevedo,

marlon.astudillo2016@uteq.edu.ec, Quevedo-Ecuador,

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6064-2617

* Master's Degree, Universidad Técnica Estatal de Quevedo, Master's

Program in Local Development, Quevedo, Ecuador,

fguerrac@uteq.edu.ec; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5967-2229

* Master's Degree, Quevedo State Technical University,

xiomara.vaca2016@uteq.edu.ec, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9692-

2311,

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leaders in the use of citizen participation mechanisms

and the management model of the Municipal

Decentralized Autonomous Government of

Quevedo.

Keywords: citizen participation, management

model, municipal decentralized autonomous

government.

RESUMEN

El objetivo de la presente investigación es evaluar la participación ciudadana que permita

la implementación de un nuevo modelo de gestión del Municipio del Cantón Quevedo,

donde exista una ciudadanía más proactiva en la formulación, planificación, ejecución y

control de las políticas públicas, la investigación permitirá detectar las falencias de los

lideres barriales en participación ciudadana. El universo de la investigación será por

medio de censo a los 112 presidentes de consejos barriales en las diferentes parroquias

urbanas del Cantón Quevedo y además del alcalde, concejales y funcionarios del

Gobierno Autónomo Descentralizado Municipal del Cantón Quevedo. Se utilizará los

métodos inductivo y deductivo para la obtención de la información. Los resultados

permitirán identificar la clave para mejorar el desempeño de los dirigentes barriales en

el uso de los mecanismos de la participación ciudadana y el modelo de gestión del

Gobierno Autónomo Descentralizado Municipal de Quevedo.

Palabras clave: participación ciudadana, modelo de gestión, gobierno autónomo

descentralizado municipal.

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the United Nations Organization has promoted the adoption of global

agendas for development, which can serve as a guide for the establishment of local

policies through their implementation. Thus, in the context of an important

reconfiguration of the relationships between the actors of international cooperation,

national States are no longer the only protagonists in the implementation of global

agendas, as local governments and civil society become subjects with enormous

transcendence in this sense (González, 2017)

From different sectors of social life, there has been much talk of the need for citizen

participation. We understand this participation in a broad sense, as the way in which the

people of a community take part in public affairs, because in some way they are affected

and involved. This participatory link is often not stable, but stems from certain reactions

of the community to events that affect them.

In the Ecuadorian context, citizen participation constitutes the fundamental pillar on

which the paradigm of Good Living is based. The 2008 Constitution of Ecuador, the

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Organic Law of Citizen Participation and Social Control (2010), the Organic Code of

Planning and Public Finance (2010) and the Organic Code of Territorial Organization,

Autonomy and Decentralization (2011) protect, promote and recognize citizen

participation as a right. However, in the formulation, implementation, control and

monitoring of public policies aimed at the fulfillment of the rights of Good Living, citizen

participation is scarce and incipient (Rojas, 2010; Paltan, 2013). Consequently, it is

questionable due to its ineffectiveness in achieving results in favor of citizens who do not

participate proactively in public policy decision-making in Ecuador's decentralized

autonomous governments. As a result of this situation, agreements on public policies

continue to be led by popularly elected authorities. Under these considerations, with

the purpose of identifying the possible causes that originate a deficient citizen

participation in the representatives of the civil society (Marco Ramiro Torres L., I Mónica

Rocío Mosquera, II Mario Padilla, II, 2017)..

"Citizen participation is primarily a right of citizens, individually and collectively, to

participate (be part of, influence) in a leading role in decision-making, planning and

management of public affairs, and in the popular control of State institutions and society,

and their representatives, in a permanent process of building citizen power" (CPCCS,

2020).

The participation of citizens in public affairs dates back to Greek society. Thus Aristotle,

when referring to the presence of the citizen of the city pointed out that man was a

political animal in the same way St. Thomas Aquinas interpreting this concept

complements that the citizen is a political and social animal (Patiño, 2017).

Therefore, it is opportune to rethink that the existing legal regulations on citizen

participation in Ecuador are not sufficient, and it is necessary to look for other options,

such as developing certain competencies for citizen participation in the main

representatives of civil society organizations, as is the case of neighborhood leaders, who

are more aware of the problems, needs, strengths and weaknesses of the city's

neighborhoods. In this sense, the work carried out by neighborhood leaders in the

processes of citizen participation is evaluated as a fundamental axis in the actions of local

governments. In the literature on the subject, there are several positions that value the

participation of neighborhood leaders in community development processes, the

diagnosis of their problems, participation in decision-making bodies and the development

and evaluation of public policies (Rojas, 2010; Pagani, 2012 and Paltan, 2013).

The lack of empowerment of citizen participation in Canton Quevedo and lack of public

policy, has meant that there is no real citizen action that is a true auditor of public

resources of the Municipality, therefore, the current management model of the

Municipality is a failure, at present the works, budget approval, prioritization of the work,

are not taken into account the citizenship, they do it unilaterally causing an illegality and

illegitimacy to the processes of managing resources with transparency.

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The purpose of this research is to present a proposal for a local public policy on citizen

participation, where citizen participation is prioritized in an active manner and positively

affects the management model of the Municipal Decentralized Autonomous

Government of Quevedo.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In Ecuador there is an Organic Law of Citizen Participation which states that all levels of

the sectional governments have the obligation to implement mechanisms for citizen

participation, but the lack of knowledge and empowerment of these rights leads to the

fact that we are not the architects and protagonists in decision-making, planning and

management of public affairs.

The lack of empowerment of citizen participation in the Canton Quevedo and lack of

public policy, has led to the absence of a real citizen action that is a true auditor of public

resources of the Municipality, therefore, the current management model of the

Municipality is a failure, currently the works, budget approval, prioritization of the work,

are not taken into account the citizenship, They do it unilaterally causing an illegality and

illegitimacy to the processes of managing resources with transparency, never from the

municipality convene meetings to socialize aspects of infrastructure spending to

prioritize with citizens whether they agree or not, but this right does not prevail the

citizenship for ignorance of their rights under the Organic Law of Citizen Participation

and the Constitution of Ecuador.

The population of neighborhood and urban parish council leaders is 112 neighborhood

councils, information I obtained from the office of Neighborhood Coordination of the

Municipal Decentralized Autonomous Government of Canton Quevedo,

The sample that we will use is all the leaders and presidents of neighborhood and parish

councils, which are 112, therefore we will make a census that will give us a reliable result.

The survey is applied to the people involved in the canton of Quevedo to assess their

knowledge about citizen participation and identify potential proposals for its promotion.

Interviews are used to gather information through questions. The interview is conducted

with professional experts in the field of citizen participation.

RESULTS

Citizen participation and social control are issues that arise in the daily life of Ecuadorian

society, this is because from the 2008 Constitution, both citizen participation and social

control were institutionalized, but it should be noted that not all mechanisms that

implement these processes are new, because the constitution opens a space for

participation and social control under the name of "rights of participation", which

incorporate different mechanisms of representative, direct, community democracy,

among others. Through this development project, strategies are proposed to the

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Municipal Decentralized Autonomous Government of the canton Quevedo, to promote

the Citizen Participation in the canton Quevedo and thus improve its management

model.

The participation of citizens in public affairs dates back to Greek society. Thus Aristotle,

when referring to the presence of the citizen of the city pointed out that man was a

political animal in the same way St. Thomas Aquinas interpreting this concept

complements that the citizen is a political and social animal. (Patiño, - 2017)

As is easy to see, the notion of citizen participation is often abused. This is probably

because in democracy the idea is politically correct. However, it is usually referred to

without there being a consensus as to its meaning or the consequences it should

produce. Over the last fifty years, citizen participation has been linked to processes of

innovation in the management of public policies and also to better delivery of public

services in an increasingly complex and demanding context. Throughout this time, the

involvement of citizens at various stages of the public policy-making process has become

institutionalized and governments have been obliged to offer citizens programs,

processes and policies that contain participatory elements.

A good principle when dealing with the topic of citizen participation consists in warning

that it is a concept that is not neutral. Behind each way of understanding citizen

participation there are not only involved -implicitly or explicitly- certain systems of

norms and values, but also different objectives. In this paper, citizen participation is

understood as the process through which citizens, who do not hold public offices or

functions, seek to share to some degree the decisions on issues that affect them with

governmental actors and to influence them. In other words, the concept of "citizen

participation" includes any form of collective action, demand or response to calls from

the government to influence public policy decisions. In other words, citizen participation

implies a willingness to have an impact. (Aldret1, 2017)

In Ecuador, public policies at all levels of government are the result of at least two

fundamental issues: on the one hand, they are the result of the participatory and

institutional processes carried out by governments, whether municipal, provincial or

national; and on the other hand, they are the result of the approaches with which public

problems are conceived and the different strategies aimed at solving them, i.e. how they

are treated.

Barbara Nelson (2001) argues that public policy arises from concerns about public issues

and the ways in which they affect people and are addressed by government authorities.

These concerns about (relevant) public issues lead the gaze of researchers, academics

and public officials themselves to the field of public policy (Nelson, 2001, p. 797).

Public policies are the concrete expression of government actions, in which various

actors - municipality, central government, ministries, citizens, among others - maintain

positions, interests and objectives with respect to an issue that concerns them (Roth,

2002).

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Contento (2017, p. 14) states that public policies are "responses of the State to

problematic situations, they can be inscribed in the political agenda and have their origin

in external or internal sources" and goes on to say that: "public policy indicates the

coordinates of how a government manifests its role in social, industrial, economic,

financial, etc. policy". Regarding the origin in internal or external sources, the former

refers to the government, state institutions, ministries, etc., and the latter refers to the

citizenry, civil society, pressure groups, among others.

The participation and (inter)action of diverse political groups and actors can either favor

or hinder the policy formulation process, as actors do not always manage to agree on

all points that affect or alter the direction and spirit of state actions (Fernando, 2018).

CONCLUSIONS

Governmental actors should promote the linkage between the State and society. One

of the most important mechanisms, and one that currently governs the design, evolution

and development of participatory budgeting. Nothing is more important than the

relationship between society, which has the needs, and budget allocations.

public policies are "responses of the State to problematic situations, they can be

inscribed in the political agenda and have their origin in external or internal sources" and

goes on to say that: "public policy indicates the coordinates of how a government

manifests its role in social, industrial, economic, financial, etc. policy". Regarding the

origin in internal or external sources, the former refer to the government, state

institutions, ministries, etc., and the latter refer to the citizenry, civil society, pressure

groups, among others. Participatory Budgeting (PB), an experience of democratic

renewal and public management that emerged in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, is today

an emblematic practice. By reaping excellent results in terms of participation, tax

collection and improvement in the living conditions of society, this experience attracted

worldwide attention and was awarded by UN-HABITAT in the mid-1990s.

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