Citizen Participation in Smart Sustainable Cities

Citizen participation and sustainability are two main concepts used in the definitions in the smart city literature. Citizen participation is often used within the context of improving good governance in smart cities. Its relationship with sustainability is seldomly discussed. This study analyses the relationship between the concepts of smart city, smart sustainable city, and citizen participation, and discusses how citizen participation is shaped in smart sustainable cities. In light of this analysis, seven types of citizen participation mechanisms are studied. The findings of the study reveal that sustainability in smart cities is only considered within the framework of environmental matters, while citizen participation is only considered as a mechanism aimed at supporting good governance. The study recommends using these participation mechanisms to highlight other aspects of sustainability such as securing comprehensiveness, alleviating poverty, promoting gender equality and to focus on other aspects of citizen participation such as real participation and democratic effectiveness.

Exploring Managerial Attitudes Toward Various Participation Mechanisms in Response to Citizen Satisfaction Signals on Public Service Quality

This study identifies the impacts of different citizen satisfaction signals (positive/negative) on managers’ agreement to use various participation channels. Citizen satisfaction with public service quality plays an essential role in managers’ accountability expectations. Accordingly, it is crucial to examine how public managers use participation mechanisms, reacting to citizen satisfaction signals on public service quality. The results confirm a negativity bias: Managers are more reactive to citizens’ negative signals than a positive signal in their service quality evaluations. However, the negative signal’s effect does not reach the participation tools, where the degree of their decision-making is highly delegated to citizens.

Improving Well-Being of Farmers Using Ecological Awareness around Protected Areas: Evidence from Qinling Region, China

Sustainability of ecosystems is crucial for improving human well-being and sustainably developing human society. In recent years, global attention towards ecosystems and human well-being has been increasing. Exploring and understanding the relationship between ecosystems and human well-being, and establishing the well-being of residents while protecting the ecosystem have become urgent problems. Based on 618 valid samples collected from communities surrounding seven nature reserves in the Qinling Mountains region of China, this study analyzed the impact of ecosystem services on farmers’ well-being from the perspective of their subjective perception of ecosystem services by using multiple linear regression and seemingly unrelated regression methods. The main conclusions are as follows: supply of vegetation and clean water improves farmers’ well-being, improvement of air quality increases farmers’ life satisfaction, and the sense of belonging and tourism value brought by the ecosystem are important factors for farmers’ physical and mental pleasure and economic benefits. Therefore, the following countermeasures and suggestions are proposed: focusing on establishing the ecological well-being of farmers, improve implementation of the services and benefits provided by the ecosystem to farmers, increase publicity and education to improve the protection consciousness of farmers, and improve community participation mechanisms while mobilizing enthusiasm for protection. This article starts from the perspective of farmers’ perception, attempting to explore whether changes in ecosystem service functions will affect farmers’ well-being, so as to provide new opinions and suggestions for improving farmers’ well-being.

Public Participation for Integrated Groundwater Management: The Case of Maneadero Valley, Baja California, Mexico

There is a controversy in groundwater management: some people argue that public participation has decreased efficiency in decision-making, while others believe this process is not executed effectively. Questions about whether public participation results from the context involving influential people, the rules, or the way participation mechanisms were designed need examination. In this study, opportunities, barriers, and challenges of public participation were analyzed in the management of a coastal aquifer affected by marine intrusion in the Maneadero Valley, México. Mixed methods were implemented, involving 28 interviews with key actors and 50 surveys conducted during 2014 and 2017 with groundwater users. Results show that public participation is mainly determined by power differences, lack of continuity in the participatory processes, and the design of the participation mechanisms. State actors have greater decision-making power in integrated groundwater management. In contrast, groundwater users have limited participation in the process of making proposals, and their participation is generally passive. There are limitations to broad, informed, and responsible public participation: examples of these limitations include different levels of information, inappropriate institutional arrangements, failure to disseminate scientific information, lack of spaces to exercise public participation, and absence of political will. Hence, to improve Maneadero aquifer management, it is necessary to decentralize decision-making, integrate technical and non-technical knowledge, generate scientific evidence about water availability, and give a prominent role to stakeholders and users from the initial stages. In addition, internalization and water culture are required. These results can help to guide integrated groundwater management in other arid regions.

Procedural Innovations Related to Sustainable Development

Research undertaken for the volume found that changes in the way that trade and investment agreements are negotiated, as well as sustainable development-related innovations contained in the procedural rules of the trade and investment treaties, from an interactional view, have implications for the way the treaty texts integrate for sustainable development. This chapter discusses four procedural innovations which are being used by Parties to identify potential environmental and sustainability impacts, and to consider innovative measures for inclusion in their trade and investment agreements. First, it considers impact assessments of trade and investment liberalization policies and draft treaties, focusing on the origins and scope of impact assessment processes, their mandates and methodologies, their role in integrating social and environmental issues into economic trade policy and how they could be improved. Second, it considers consultations between economic, environmental and social development authorities as a mechanism to secure more integrated and coherent trade and investment policy-making. Third, the chapter discusses transparency and public participation mechanisms, in agreement negotiations and the agreements themselves. Finally, it explores innovative dispute settlement provisions.

Desigualdad social y toma de decisiones en los comunales: El gobierno del mayor canal de riego de España (la Acequia Real del Júcar, Valencia) en el siglo XIX

We analyse the management institutions of a community irrigation system in Mediterranean Spain, the Acequia Real (Royal Canal) of the Júcar river, where social inequality among irrigators was high. We look at the changes in the canal's institutions over time. There were two levels of government institutions. Only the elites could participate in the first one, that is, the government of the main canal. Although the local management bodies that governed the successive derivations of the main canal included more people, not every irrigator had the right to be part of them, but there were informal participation mechanisms that allowed everyone to voice.

Political Culture and Citizen Participation: Transiting from Political Space

Societies build their interpretation and representation on the different phenomena in their social, historical and political processes, so also the political culture contains a set of beliefs, ideas, myths, norms, which give it identity, values, and ends. Consequently, from the democratic culture, the citizen is encouraged to move in the public space, determined by actions, and practices. As a result of these relationships, participation mechanisms are institutionalized for the emancipation or defense of citizens against the role of the State that is domination. Characterizing the aspects that involve political culture, participation and citizen action in the democratic political space, is the central object of this dissertation. The systematic review, bibliographic, documentary, and critical analysis, facilitate the method and the achievement of results, it is concluded that democracy as a system of government is characterized by its factual expression of representation and participation, this implies a global interaction with negotiation of the scheme of interests between rulers and ruled.

The Development of the Constitutional Principle of Involvement of Government Authorities in the Establishment of Local Self-Government Authorities

Taking into account the amendments made to the Constitution of Russia, approaches to the development of legislation on the participation of state authorities in the formation of local self-government bodies are presented This policy began to take shape simultaneously with the discussion of amendments. The first such step was the introduction of approval of the appointment of officials of local administrations that carry out management in the field of education. This regulation does not meet the requirements of completeness, and given that only one area of municipal administration is selected, it is not systematic. With this in mind, criteria have been developed that allow for the development of specific participation mechanisms. They apply the legal positions of the constitutional Court of Russia. Based on these criteria, the areas of management in which it is proposed to develop the principle under consideration are identified.