Participatory Democracy

The Case of Parish Development Committees in Jamaica

Marc Anthony Thomas

• Editore: The University of the West Indies Press
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9789766408565

In Participatory Democracy: The Case of Parish Development Committees in Jamaica, Marc Anthony Thomas expands the existing knowledge on participatory democracy. Parish development committees were established as a means for Jamaicans to inform government policy, and Thomas explores the extent to which supportive institutional, infrastructural and superstructural conditions allow for robust implementation of this democratization initiative. His analysis is bolstered by an appreciation of the emancipatory politics employed by the country's general population since slavery not only to survive oppression, but also to influence the nation's political agenda. Riots during slavery and in the present day, for example, have offered citizens an avenue towards self-determination.

The democratization initiative symbolized by parish development committees promotes inclusiveness yet is led predominantly by older, educated middle-class individuals with talents and capacities garnered from several years of experience in various fields. Thomas argues that the opportunity cost of a more inclusive order explains this fact, in that Jamaica's finite resources mean there is limited space for a learning curve and the cash-strapped committees have only been able to survive when their members could help to defray the cost of their operations.

By observing more than one hundred hours of parish development committee activities and interviewing sixty key informants and four focus groups, Thomas finds that the emergence, survival and thriving of parish development committees in Jamaica is determined largely by the extent to which emancipatory political tactics are successfully applied by committee stakeholders to combat a number of continuing challenges. His analysis provides a micro-scale view of the interaction of factors that have shaped the power and possibility of Jamaica's democratization initiative.

1.

Planting the Seeds of Jamaica’s Democracy

Parish development committees (PDCs) were set up to bolster Jamaica’s democratization efforts yet, curiously, the committees rarely have leadership elections. One internal report lamented how undemocratic the committees were because of this fact, while government officials bewailed the “obvious” attempt by the leadership to hold on indefinitely to power. The traditional focus on idealized forms of democratic activity immediately casts organizations such as PDCs in a negative light. The careful investigation of each entity at a granular level, as in this study, revealed many and diverse reasons for relatively few elections. One PDC did not have elections in order to prevent partisan infiltration. In another instance, members delayed election efforts in order to identify a potential candidate who would be suitable not only by meeting constitutional expectations (a citizen of voting age, for example) but also by meeting the organization’s needs as stipulated by the on-the-ground realities it was confronting. Such a candidate might have the financial wherewithal to assist the cash-strapped body or possess a reputation that would aid in recruiting efforts since membership was dwindling.

Delaying or denying an election was a shrewd tactic used to secure the very survival of the committee. In fact, this study found that the emergence, survival and ability to thrive of PDCs in Jamaica are determined largely by the extent to which such “emancipatory political tactics” are successfully applied by stakeholders to combat a number of continuing challenges in these committee’s environments.

This work empirically expands the existing knowledge on participatory democracy through a study of Jamaica’s PDCs. The present chapter will offer greater detail on the background, foci, methods and main research questions as well as offer an overview of how my finding are shared across the chapters.

Parish Development Committees

Jamaica’s political system, an outgrowth of the country’s colonial heritage, has traditionally provided few opportunities for the general population to participate in the nation’s governance. The creation of parish development committees (throughout the book, both PDCs and “the experiment” refer to parish development committees) and other organizations aimed at eliciting citizen engagement in local governance in the Caribbean nation marked a departure from that history. A government report introducing this new participatory structure explained as follows:

Parish Development Committees (PDCs), Development Area Committees (DACs) and Community Development Committees (CDCs) represent new institutional forms that have emerged in Jamaica’s quest to create a new paradigm of participatory local governance, in which communities/civil society are made full partners in the quest for good governance and balanced/sustainable local development. They are key elements of the institutional framework for a new model of participatory governance that will vastly expand democratic practice in the society and help to renew/revitalize the political system – and create goodwill/commitment towards this system, by enabling the active participation of citizens in the policy/decision-making processes. It is also critical in empowering communities to have a greater say in managing their own affairs and determining their own destiny; in facilitating citizens to play a more active role in governance at the local level; and in unleashing the vast store of energy, talents, innovativeness and leadership that lie dormant in large sections of the population, but which are stifled by high levels of centralization and exclusion which limit their ability to contribute to local and national development.¹

Schoburgh has nicely summarized the aims of this governance initiative: “Local government reform policy in Jamaica thus aimed to reorient the focus of local authorities from mere providers of local services to agents of social transformation.”² The Department of Local Government report that introduced PDCs defined them as

an inclusive, democratic, independent, non-political and voluntary organization which brings together all elements of civil society, governmental, quasi and non-governmental agencies and organizations in a parish or other local government jurisdiction. It is established for the primary purpose of facilitating local self-management and development processes within the parish, and promoting and facilitating the concepts, principles and practices of good governance and balanced and sustainable development within the local jurisdiction. It seeks to accomplish these goals by working through and in partnership with its corresponding Local Authority, and by promoting partnership, collaboration, coordination, cooperation and networking among all the diverse sectors, interest groups and stakeholders in the parish, and also by encouraging the adoption of positive values and attitudes, social harmony and stability, and respect for the parish’s culture, heritage and unique character.³

As initially envisioned by the Office of the Prime Minister, PDCs were expected to “reverse adversarialism and tribalism, which are currently dominant characteristics of [Jamaica’s] social and political relationships”.⁴ Caribbean scholars Munroe and Buddan have also argued for more direct forms of participation in Jamaica, which they have suggested could serve as a mechanism for closing what they perceive to be the nation’s democratic deficit.⁵ The specific cause of this difficulty for Munroe particularly lies in the character of liberal democracy. As he has observed, “indirect representative democracy is concerned almost exclusively with institutional and procedural issues and mainly political inputs, participatory democracy is as much concerned with outcomes and substantive questions relating to the quality of social and economic life”.⁶ In his v...