Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Communicative Citizenship and Participatory Democracy

加州大学圣地亚哥分校研究生Ana Paula Pimentel Walker将在Nancy G. Postero博士的指导下进行参与民主主义的研究。她的重点将是，为什么在相互竞争的社会阶层和利益集团之间分配国家资源方面，参与式民主的一些例子比其他例子更有效。社会科学对参与式制度的有效性的研究结果往往不一致。为了解释这些不一致，本研究将探讨以下假设：1)政党的参与式民主意识形态对国家资源再分配有影响；2)不同的参与性制度设计会产生不同的再分配结果。这项研究将在巴西进行，巴西现在强制要求建立几种形式的参与性机构。然而，实施它们的市政当局是由对参与式民主目标持不同意见的政党管理的，这允许进行比较研究设计。比较实地工作将在圣保罗市辖区的两个区进行，这两个区对参与的看法不同。研究人员将从社会语言学角度分析参与式会议上的交际互动和话语实践开始，在这些会议上，构成好公民的概念被发展为研究人员所说的“交际公民”。除了社会语言学分析外，研究还将包括在会议上的直接和参与观察；分析政策文件、人口普查信息和预算数据；政治传单的文本分析；与两区居民的访谈；还有一项调查。除了澄清参与式民主文献中一些相互矛盾的发现外，本研究还将进一步深入了解制度、意识形态和当地对公民身份和权利的理解之间的关系。研究结果还可以帮助政策制定者和活动家推动制度改革。资助这项研究也有助于社会科学家的教育。

University of California at San Diego graduate student, Ana Paula Pimentel Walker, under the guidance of Dr. Nancy G. Postero, will undertake research on participatory democracy. Her focus will be on why some instances of participatory democracy are more effective than others in distributing state resources among competing social classes and interest groups. Social science findings regarding the efficacy of participatory institutions are often inconsistent. To explain these inconsistencies, this research will explore the hypotheses, that 1) a political party's ideology of participatory democracy has an impact on the redistribution of state resources; and 2) different designs of participatory institutions produce disparate redistributive outcomes. The research will be conducted in Brazil, where several forms of participatory institutions are now mandatory. However, the municipalities implementing them are governed by political parties that disagree about the goals of participatory democracy, which allows for a comparative research design. The comparative fieldwork will be done in two districts in the Sao Paolo Municipal Area, which differ in their views of participation. The researcher will begin with a sociolinguistic analysis of the communicative interactions and discursive practices that take place at participatory meetings, where ideas of what constitutes a good citizen are developed as what the researcher terms "communicative citizenship." In addition to sociolinguistic analysis, the research will include direct and participant observation at meetings; analysis of policy documents, census information, and budget data; textual analysis of political tracts; interviews with residents of both districts; and a survey. Besides clarifying some of the contradictory findings of the participatory democracy literature, this study will provide further insight into the relationship between institutions, ideologies, and locally-situated understandings of citizenship and entitlements. Research findings can also aid policymakers and activists in promoting institutional reforms. Funding this research also contributes to the education of a social scientist.