urban regeneration in deprived european neighbourhoods 415
democracy and strong public spheres, community engagement through
representation tended to be more substantive.
There is a substantial literature on the potential role of deliberation in the
recovery of urban democracy. Building on the insights of Habermas and
others, Elster defines deliberative democracy as collective “... decision-making
by means of arguments offered by and to participants,” (1998, p. 8). In urban
planning theory, the idea of deliberative democracy has gained considerable
currency promoting the idea of community based, negotiated decision-making.
In terms of the case studies, we found that deliberative democracy tended to
occur at the meso-level and to occur only sporadically. In most cities there are
examples of “one off” participatory democracy exercises, that is, specific
projects that are directed at actively empowering the local residents by
encouraging participation from a wider pool of people, and by entrusting
participants with a right to disseminate funding, or plan the precise contours
of a redevelopment project.5 In these cases, residents are given a very real
sense of their input into decision-making processes. Residents are constructed
as pro-active rather than re-active. Where there is a history of strong local
democracy (in Berlin and Copenhagen) there are high levels of engagement
and trust on the part of the community, and a more powerful commitment to
deliberative democracy on the part of the municipality. In Dublin, in contrast,
there is a weaker civil society tradition. Local residents are often asked to
become involved in consultative and participatory processes without having
appropriate training, and with no access to the kinds of technical support
available to the professionals. This seriously impacts on their capacity not only
to articulate an independent position but also to defend that position against
its critics. As Amin and Thrift point out “... open deliberation often conceals
self-interest and institutionalised inequality”, (2002, p. 139)
Clientelism occurred most frequently at the micro-level within the locality,
and was most likely to be found in cities with traditions of a powerful centrist
state. In Lisbon, Valletta and Vilnius we found examples of consultation
processes that were targeted primarily at individuals rather than
collectivities. The role of the regeneration agency, for example, was largely to
convince the individual householder of the potential benefits for the
householder accruing from the regeneration process (housing renewal in
Lisbon) and to provide incentives for the householder to enter into a
partnership with the regeneration agency in order to carry out necessary
5 One instrument targeted at community capacity building in Wrangelkiez, a Berlin neighbour-
hood was the “neighbourhood fund”. It provided a neighbourhood jury (51 per cent of whom were
randomly picked from the residents’ register) with a fixed budget (€500,000) and the
responsibility for the allocation of the budget. The project mobilised the local population to become
actively involved in regeneration and was deemed a success.