Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This is a qualitative data collection.

This research focused on municipal innovations in public policy making that have been notable in Latin America since the 1980s and the UK since the 1990s. The core research question was: what tensions, changes and outcomes arise when non-governmental actors begin to make use of these new opportunities for public participation at the local/municipal level?

The research team explored this in six cities, three in Latin America (Porto Alegre, Medellin and Caracas) and three in the UK (Manchester, Bradford and Salford). A range of methodologies were used including an interactive rather than extractive research methodology which the researchers called 'co-producing knowledge', participant observation, in-depth interviews and informal group session inquiry methods.

Users should note that only the in-depth interview transcripts are available as part of the data collection available from the UK Data Archive. This excludes the interview transcripts from Porto Alegre which were not deposited. The interviews from Medellin and Caracas are in Spanish. The case study of Salford was not funded by the ESRC but interview transcripts are available.

Further information is available from the Municipal Innovations in Non-Governmental Public Participation: UK/Latin America ESRC Award webpage.

Main Topics:

The main areas covered are:

• participatory processes
• municipal level decision making
• democratic systems
• non-governmental actors
• responses to new spaces of participation
• evolution of participatory attitudes and actions