Public Policy and scale of Government. The citizens participation public policy case in the Spanish townships

Abstract

The paper maintains that the problem of scale is central to democracy and especially to the discussion of public policy where the scale of any undertaking will throw up different cost, information, choice and implementation consequences for differing levels of participation in the same. From this idea, the article pretends to show how the very design and development of citizen participation in decision making that aims to strengthen democracy is hobbled from the start and this even within small community units such as town councils. Grounding itself upon a study poll made in Spanish townships, the article points up these conditioning factors to show how different communities with different sizes have shaped their policies to their size and circumstances i.e. resources and the costs of citizen participation and of how this has led a variety of models for citizen participation in decision making. These results are here said to raise serious doubts as whether the welfare state could ever reach down to grass roots without there being a previous shake up in local government legislation and this in the framework of an even greater integration within E.E.C. structures