Community Participation and Governance in North-East India
| Author | Ningthoujam Irina |
| Published date | 01 July 2016 |
| Date | 01 July 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0019556120160311 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION AND GOVERNANCE
IN NORTH-EAST INDIA
NINGTHOUJAM IRINA
The traditional
and
modern
systems
of
governance
can
integrate effectively to serve the interests
of
citizens. Besides
the participatory model
of
governance, the communities have
shown ihe capacity
to
act as partners
in
the local development
planning. However, the inroads ofneo-liberal state policies fail
to give due importance
to
the community ownership
of
local
knowledge.
Governance and Community
THE
CONTEMPORARY
discourse
on
'Governance'
embraces the
participation
of
all relevant stakeholders
in
a society cutting across the divide
between state actors and non-state actors as public
st:;rvice
delivery remains
the greatest challenge. Since the early 1990s, the government innovations
revolving around the neo-liberal 'New Public Management' model has
been criticised for being individualistic; consumer-oriented and market-
centric innovation.
1
In contrast to such a view, Janet and Robert Denhardt
(2003) proposed a "New Public Service", a set
of
ideas about the role
of
public administration in the governance system that places public service,
democratic governance, and civic engagement at the centre.2 Within this
paradigm the people are seen as citizens, and the public interest
is
realised
through a dialogue about shared values. Here citizenship
is
concerned
more with general issues related to the nature
of
one's membership
in
a
political community, including such issues as the rights and responsibilities
of
citizens, regardless
of
their legal status.
3
Such a model
of
governance stresses the importance
of
community.
It
attempts to bring governance that promotes the ideals
of
community
governance and grassroots democracy. This normative idea
of
'community'
could be traced to the German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies (1887) who
defined Gemeinschaft as life based on the bonds
of
kinship, geographical
location and the sentiment
of
belonging to a group. Though a pre-modem
social construct, this concept
of
'community' has survived beyond the
temporal dividing line between modem and pre-modem. The outcome
of
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