A more collaborative Buenos Aires: Civil society participation in public policy-making

This paper analyzes new participation and its impact on the local government in the city of Buenos Aires. Applying qualitative methodology, particularly in the first and only case study of its kind, this paper offers a description and evaluation of the institutional process designed to engage organized civil society, and to increase collaboration with new forms of mediation within the new participatory framework of representative local democracy in place since 1996. Specifically, the local Strategic Planning Council will be evaluated and appraised via an analysis of the goals and fulfillment of the general strategic plan for the period 2004 to 2010.