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Revista de la Facultad de Derecho

Print version ISSN 0797-8316On-line version ISSN 2301-0665

Abstract

GONZALEZ SCANDIZZI, Julián. From the Force of Law to Miracle of Action. Local Governments and Citizen Participation in Uruguay. Rev. Fac. Der. [online]. 2019, n.47, e106.  Epub Dec 01, 2019. ISSN 0797-8316.  https://doi.org/10.22187/rfd2019n47a6.

From their origin, the Uruguayan municipal governments incorporated the citizen participation postulate. However, the municipal legislation includes the normative content of this mandate as a generic principle, highly ambiguous and with limited operability. Faced with this, the attempt to legally stipulate mandatory mechanisms that local governments would have to replicate appears as an attractive alternative. This paper points out a set of critical arguments that warn about some potential problems generated by compulsory regulations of citizen participation. Based on the experience of other Latin-American countries, it is shown how this type of legislation ignores core conditions required for citizen participation became a contribution in order to democratize local governments. Especially, it is discussed the importance of the political will as an angular stone for succeed implementation. In the Uruguayan context, it is observed that different intensity degree of municipal authorities’ participative vocations is influenced by the programmatic and discursive traditions of the main political parties of the country. This circumstance would depict an additional obstacle for pro-participation laws application.

Keywords : Citizen Participation; Pro-participative Legislation; Democratic Deepening; Local Governments; Uruguay.

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