Urban governance and participatory democracy: existing regulations, challenges and ways forward

EU strategies for an integrated and sustainable urban development widely recognize the crucial role of innovative governance models, based on principles of transparency, openness and public participation. These principles of participatory democracy go to the heart of the relationship between government and society and drives social innovation. However, their meaning is difficult to nail down and they assume, in practice, a variety of forms. Participatory processes are implemented in flexible ways and open-ended discursive experiences are too fragile to sustain the desired policy and social transformation. The paper aims to reconstruct the meaning and the scope of these principles, in the light of recent developments in international legal practice in the fields of environmental and human rights protection. The study seeks to provide elements useful to support the implementation of these principles in urban planning (subjects to be involved, relevant interests and decisions, effectiveness conditions...) and to evaluate the suitability of existing instruments for urban development dimension.