Citizen Participation in Ecuador: A Critical Analysis of Institutional Design

• In Event: Citizen Engagement in the Policy Process: Global & Local Dynamics

Abstract

The following paper addresses the design of the policy implemented to institutionalize citizen participation in Ecuador through the critical analysis of the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control (CCPSC). The CCPSC is a participatory institution created during Rafael Correa´s government, its main objective, according to article 207 of the Ecuadorian Constitution is: to "promote and encourage the exercise of citizen participation rights, promote and establish social control mechanisms in public affairs matters, and the designation of the corresponding authorities according to the Constitution and the law. " The CCPSC responds to ideas fitting participatory and deliberative democratic theory traditions, albeit, from an anti-hegemonic approach characteristic of the progressive-left South American governments during the first decade of the present century. Since the creation of the CCPSC, anti-correista political actors have had an unfavorable opinion towards the institution. More recently, rejection has spread to citizens in general, as this organism is associated with deep and systematic corruption in the country. Consequently, Lenin Moreno´s new government implemented a popular constitutional referendum to amend the CCPSC, thus beginning a process of evaluation and institutional redesign. Using the analytical framework of discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2012), this work explores the evolution in the institutional design of the CCPSC in three moments: First, we provide an analysis of the constitutional process of 2008 to evidence the views and arguments of the assembly members in favor and against the creation of this organism. A second moment explores the institutionalization process of CPCSS through the analysis of laws and national development plans. A third and final moment recounts the process of institutional redesign of the CCPSC during post-correism. The aforementioned analysis shows that there is evidence of a conceptual confusion regarding the function and objectives of the CCPSC. This in turn, informs the laws and national plans that effectively institutionalize the CCPSC. In addition, the redesign of the CCPSC shows the fragility of Ecuadorian institutions related to political participation, social control and the division of powers. These findings characterize the CCPSC as an institution that, instead of promoting citizen participation and social control, serves as a valuable tool for political organizations and actors to reconfigure power structures in Ecuador

Author

• Daniela Margarita Orrantia, Universidad Casa Grande