PARTICIPATORY PLANNING IN COTACACHI, ¿STATE SPACE OR CITIZENS SPACE? (1996-2018)

LA PLANIFICACIÓN PARTICIPATIVA EN COTACACHI

Abstract

The institutionalization of local participatory planning established by the 2008 Constitution, produced in Cotacachi -the national benchmark for participation- a scenario of conflict over new spaces for participation in planning, causing a confrontation between the legality of local government, established as a state authority on participatory planning; and the legitimacy of the social actors, who for a decade and a half before the Constitution, promoted and sustained the participatory process in the canton, becoming non-state authorities for participation. The present study tries to give an account of the possibilities of political action of the spaces of participation inserted in the planning that, from the local government, were implemented as mechanisms of exclusion of actors not aligned to their political flag; and from the social actors they were approached as spaces for organizational action in demand of their participation rights. Methodologically, through a qualitative research, a case study was prepared that, under the analytical approach of the governmentality of Michel Foucault, reveals the various government strategies implemented by the State (central and local) and civil society for ruling the spaces of participation in local planning. Coming to conclude that the government of the current participatory planning regime in Cotacachi is produced under the influence of various power practices based on knowledge and authority implemented by state and social actors, the latter succeeding in validating their performance through specialized technical capacities. and organizational political capital.