New Tyranny of Participation

Description

Phil Mader:

"I’ve recently been reading through the thought-provoking (albeit somewhat attention-grabbingly titled) book Participation: The New Tyranny?. The authors from a broad range of disciplinary backgrounds take on the paradigm of participatory development from various angles, from failing to account for local power asymmetries and élite capture, to the technicalist perfunctory nature of many participation processes.

Part of Bill Cooke’s chapter entitled “The Social Psychological Limits of Participation?” caught my eye because of his consise elucidation of groupthink and its relation to development policy-making and practice, both at the transnational and the local level." (http://governancexborders.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/does-the-microfinance-community-suffer-from-groupthink/)